Author: irrieducation

On November 14 and 15, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in partnership with the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), conducted a training workshop aiming to provide an overview of rice abiotic stress trials and the benefits of digital data collection. This program is an initiative under the Climate Smart African Rice Project in Morogoro, Tanzania, aimed at developing varieties tolerant to abiotic stresses such as flooding, salinity, and germination under anaerobic conditions.

The training was held at SUA, Morogoro, Tanzania and was participated by undergraduate and graduate students of the university as well as technicians and field staff from the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI). Throughout the 2-day program, the participants attended lectures on environmental characterization, relative growth rate, taking measurements using the Fieldbook app,  stress screening protocols, and examples from physiology research. Aside from this, they also participated in several demonstrations in screenhouses on the use of rain gauge and soil hand texturing.

One of the highlights of the training was the hands-on activity where participants got to apply what they have learned in the lectures and discussions with the experts. Working in groups, the participants collected data in the screenhouses, formatted the data, calculated the relative growth rate (RGR), compared genotypic means by ANOVA, and visualized data with a bar graph using the R software. Notably, all analysis was done directly from the plant to the computer with no use of paper and pencil for data recording.

Participants also expressed their appreciation for the training. “I thank IRRI Education for this valuable training. The training was useful and has enlightened me with the knowledge and skills on rice characterization and digital data collection and will help my institute collect good quality data in our stress trials,” said Mr. Zakayo Machunde. Another participant Mr. Kalegi Nzingula Hamis noted, “I am thankful for the training because now I have added skills that will increase my working performance in my organization.”

Capping the sharing of testimonials, Mr. Paulo Sulle remarked “I highly recommend continuation of this type of courses to other scientists so to further strengthen the research capacity in the region”.

The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the College of Agriculture and Food Science of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) organized a 2-day training on the fundamentals of rice-farm management and operations and farm machinery maintenance. 

From November 16 to 17, 30 technicians, farm workers, and heavy equipment operators from UPLB were at the IRRI headquarters to learn the basic knowledge and skills required in planning and operating a rice farm and maintaining rice farm machinery and equipment. The training will also highlight safe practice in operating agricultural machinery for rice production.

During the opening program, Gopesh Tewari, Head of IRRI Education, welcomed the participants. He talked about the role of machineries and mechanization in agriculture and how, moving forward, this would still play a part for agriculture 4.0. Ending his message, he urged the participants to interact and participate in dialogues with different IRRI scientists and resource persons of the program to enhance their knowledge and skills that they can bring back to UPLB. 

Meanwhile, Joanna Kane-Potaka, IRRI’s Deputy Director General for Strategic Engagement and Impact, talked about the core mission of IRRI and the imperatives that goes along with it, focusing on climate change adaptation and mitigation and nutrition and food security. She also shared about the ongoing collaboration between IRRI and UPLB and how the current training is a testament of these efforts. Ending her message, she posed a challenge to the participants, “as you go through this course, look for opportunities how what you’re doing and what IRRI is doing, how we may be able to work together more. If you can identify anything we’re really keen to collaborate more and look for opportunities there.” 

The dean of UPLB’s College of Agriculture and Food Science, Elpidio M. Agbisit, Jr., was also present during the program where he emphasized the importance of the training for the participants whom he considers as the backbone of their college. “This is the opportunity for you to acquaint yourself with the future of agriculture and we have to adjust so that we can [still] be relevant. I hope that everybody will listen, learn, and apply the knowledge that you will gain from this [training]”.

In the span of two days, the participants attended lectures on land preparation, crop establishment, water management and pest management, rice harvesting and post-harvest operations, and power sources in the farm. Aside from these, they also had hands-on training on farm machine maintenance and safety protocols for operating rice farm equipment. Moreover, they visited key IRRI facilities such as the Zeigler Experiment Station, where they observed the operations of post-harvest machineries; the IRRI Plant Growth Facility; and the IRRI Genebank.

IRRI Education, the educational arm of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) participated in the 6th International Rice Congress (IRC2023) last 16-19 October 2023, showcasing the innovations in capacity development and knowledge sharing.

The Rice Congress, held every four years, brings together scientists, policymakers, experts, and the private sector to discuss global rice trends and the changes and challenges in the agri-food sector. This year, the congress was held at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Manila.

During the four-day event, IRRI Education showcased its offerings through their state-of-the-art booth which offered interactive displays that reveals information about IRRI Education and its flagship services.

Riding on IRRI’s research and innovation, IRRI Education currently operates with five service portfolios – Short & Long Courses, Scholars & Youth Engagement, Online Learning & Product Development, Knowledge Sharing, and Advisory around Capacity Development – all of which underpin the commitment to producing holistic and integrated learning solutions, addressing learning gaps and expectations with sound educational innovations for global south.

Some of the highlights of the interactive display were the featured micromodules, where IRC delegates can simulate taking some of micromodules available in IRRI Education’s Learning Management System (openlearning.cgiar.org); the upcoming courses section, where they can see dates and application links to the courses lined up for the months of October to December of this year; the available scholarship section, where interested students can check out the opportunities available for them; and the videos in every section of the display, where IRRI Education showed the highlights and impacts of its programs.

IRRI alumni were also engaged through the feature dubbed as the IRRI Alumni Map. Previous scholars and trainees had fun pinning their locations in the map and connecting with other alumni from the same area as them. Aside from the interaction with the scholars, the map was designed to show the diversity of the IRRI Education alumni network.

For the duration of the congress, IRRI Education engaged in meaningful conversations with the attendees, ranging from scientists and researchers, leaders and policymakers, members of the private sector to students and local farmers. These conversations are expected to shape and inform the current and future program offerings of IRRI Education to align with the demands of its stakeholders.

In the evolving digital age, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) recently held a groundbreaking face-to-face course, ‘Digital Knowledge and Tools for Precision Farming’ from 3-5 October 2023. The program aimed to facilitate the adoption of appropriate digital technologies, maximize impact in the shortest time, and produce substantive benefits for the rice industry stakeholders.

The course offered an overview of digital knowledge and tools for precision farming within the rice value chain, highlighting their advantages and potential to maximize benefits for researchers, rice farmers, producers, and consumers.

This program was designed for the regional staff of the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA), Philippine State Universities and Colleges, and Local Government Unit Agriculture Extension Workers (AEWs), as part of the SERVE 2 Project, a collaboration between DA and IRRI that aims to educate and help build the capacity of national agricultural extension and research programs (NAREP) towards Agriculture 4.0.

In the inaugural session of the course, Dr. Madonna Casimero, IRRI Senior Scientist and Project Leader for the SERVE 2 Project, emphasized the pivotal role of Digital Agriculture (Agriculture 4.0) and precision farming in Philippine agriculture. Following this, a panel of experts presented various technologies, including MOET, RCM, RKB, Rice Doctor, ORYZA, and more, exploring their applications throughout the rice value chain. The session also encompassed essential modules on data collection, data processing, big data and analytics, as well as the integration of digital knowledge. The participants concluded the program by presenting their action plans during a concluding presentation workshop.

“The Digital Knowledge and Tools for Precision Farming Course is the best training course I’ve had so far. It opened my eyes to the incredible potential within the rice value chain and how we can integrate other commodities specific to each region. I’m particularly excited about the future of small and smart farms, coupled with digital tools and highly innovative facilities, that will contribute to sustainable food production,” expressed Ms. Mitchel V. Canogoran, Technical Staff at the Department of Agriculture RFO12.

Another participant, Ms. Cherry Mae C. Cuevas, Assistant Professor 3 at Bulacan Agricultural State College, commented, “The training course was exceptionally well-organized, and every minute of the 3-day program was utilized effectively. I gained valuable insights and skills related to digital agriculture that I can enhance further and share with my colleagues, students, and various community members.”

As this program concludes, IRRI reaffirms its commitment to advancing digital agriculture and precision farming. The enthusiasm and insights shared by participants underscore the transformative potential of digital tools in agriculture. The journey towards sustainable farming through innovation continues, with IRRI working alongside in driving this movement forward.

IRRI South Asia Regional Centre (ISARC) conducted a 3-day Training Program for Officials from The Directorate of Agriculture and Food Production, Odisha from 26th to 28th September 2023. The program was organized as a part of Odisha Integrated Irrigation Project for Climate Resilient Agriculture (OIIPCRA). A total of 20 Participants underwent the training program.

The aim of the visit was to expose the officials of OIIPCRA to the various Agricultural innovation and Climate Resilient Technologies that will help them in dealing with the existing and emergent climate related constraints to improving productivity and profitability of Agri-food systems in the state of Odisha.

The 3-day program had the participants develop their understanding in and around the following areas: Regenerative Agriculture, GAPs & Site-Specific Nutrient Management, Soil Health management & Possible Carbon Credits in Rice Based Ecosystems, Enhancing system productivity and resilience in rice-based Agri-food systems through appropriate crops cultivars and sustainable seed systems, Alternative Crop Establishment Methods & Component Technologies.

Coming to Seed system, sessions were organized around: Quality Seed Production: Overview & importance in Odisha context, Seed System and Product Management: An IRRI perspective, activities, and contribution with special reference to On Farm Trial, Biotic & Abiotic Factors Affecting Seed Quality during Production. The training program also threw light on Geospatial technologies and digital agriculture, Market Segments, Product Profile and Product Management.

The participants also had dedicated time to make a tour of ISARC’s field facility, Crop cafeteria, Speed breed facility and Labs and glean insight from work taking place in these areas.

Nine graduate students and rice researchers from Pakistan, China, Philippines, South Korea, Kenya, South Africa, Mozambique,and  Tanzania were trained on phenotyping for abiotic stresses in rice during the comprehensive training program offered by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

The training, held on 18-22 September 2023, offered lectures and hands-on demonstrations of protocols for environmental monitoring, screening, and physiological measurements related to seedling stage, vegetative stage, and reproductive stage drought, seedling and reproductive stage salinity, heat, submergence, and stagnant flooding in rice. Field trips to stress-affected farmers’ fields in the Philippines were also organized where participants were able to interact and engage with local rice farmers and observe the real-life implications of abiotic stresses in rice. 

Dr. Amelia Henry, Senior Scientist II – Stress Physiology and Research Unit Leader – Traits for Challenged Environments, Rice Breeding Innovations, served as the main resource person for the training. She was joined by Dr. Waseem Hussain, Scientist I – Rice Breeding Innovations; Dr. Mahender Anumalla, Postdoctoral Fellow – Trait Development; Ms. Joie Ramos, Senior Associate Scientist I – Plant Breeding; Mr. James Egdane, Researcher – Plant Physiology; Mr. Mignon Natividad, Assistant Scientist – Drought Physiology; and Ms. Marjorie de Ocampo, Associate Scientist – Molecular Breeding.

“The course was delivered in a very interactive manner – full of practicals and hands-on activities, which made it very easy to understand and hard to forget. I highly recommend this to anyone who is dealing with abiotic stress experiments even on crops other than rice,” said Ms. Margareth Makauki, a researcher based in IRRI Regional Office – Africa.

Another participant, Mr. Joaquim Maquival, Assistant Scientist at IRRI Mozambique echoed the sentiment, saying “The training course for Phenotyping for Abiotic Stress was very useful as these are the main problems that affect the farmers’ fields all over the world. The combination of theoretical and practical sessions made the understanding of the topics for the course very effective.” 

In her concluding remarks, Dr. Henry encouraged the participants to keep the network with IRRI and each other intact. “Please feel free to contact us after this course, if you have any questions or ideas for collaborations because the only way that we will have impact for the farmers is by working through collaborations.”

The training is one of the courses offered by IRRI Education customized for scientists and researchers, farmers and extension, and leaders in the rice-based agri-food sector. To see the full suite of learning programs around Science, Technology Transfer, and Policy Leadership, visit https://education.irri.org/short-long-courses/

Selected IRRI researchers and staff attended IRRI Education’s (IE) Research Proposal Writing Online Course, a pilot program offered by IE’s Online Learning and Product Development Unit, last 18-22 September 2023.

The course was intended to equip participants with the essential knowledge and competencies required to create impactful and well-structured research proposals that will enable them to actively contribute to meaningful solutions and improve their ability to think critically and make informed decisions in the field of agriculture. At the end of the course, participants were able to develop and present their research proposal draft.

The online course has four modules which consist of online self-paced lessons and knowledge checkpoint activities to facilitate learning. Additionally, there were synchronous lectures conducted by experts, which served as refreshers to the self-paced lessons, providing learners with the opportunity to engage directly with subject matter experts and delve deeper into the module’s content.

During the course’s opening program on 18 September, Angelica Valerie De Jesus, HR Business Partner, Learning and Development, welcomed the participants and expressed her excitement for the pilot session of the course. “We are so glad that the pilot session is happening already because as you may know, for the past years and past records of the performance management in IRRI, there is really a clamor for this kind of training. And there is no better team to deliver this training than the IRRI Education team who know whom to tap as resource speakers”. 

Addressing the participants, she also gave some reminders about taking the course, “It is good that this course is a combination of synchronous and asynchronous, and when you take the asynchronous modules in the learning management system, we request you to not multitask because you really need to give attention to the learning so that you can get the most out of it Second, we encourage you to show up during the synchronous sessions. Apart from the experts that IRRI Education brought in, you will also learn a lot from your colleagues”. 

Adding to this, Gopesh Tewari, Head of IRRI Education, commented during his opening remarks, “I’m very happy that we are starting this particular [course] and there are many more such types of programs in the pipeline that we are going to roll out with the support of HR-OD over a period of time so that we can build the internal capacities of the IRRI colleagues as well”. He also shared his vision of the future offerings of the courses stating “Eventually, we plan to pull together content from different programs ranging from management, policies, leadership, to the technical and hard sciences, and create asynchronous learning contents which can be used as life-long learning modules by everyone.” 

In the learning management system, participants expressed their remarks about the course. Vijayakumar Shanmuagam commented, “The valuable lesson I acquired through this research proposal writing course includes the understanding of the difference between a research proposal and a project proposal and having a clear idea of the overall structure of both. I have also learned what things I must include in my proposal. I will prepare my research proposal following the same structure given in this lesson”.

Meanwhile, Ruvicyn Bayot shared “It is always important to go back to the fundamentals of research project development. I appreciate the opportunity to review basic concepts and terminologies”.

The course concluded on Friday, 22 September, with a face-to-face session at the IRRI Education Training Room 1, where participants presented their research proposals and received final critiquing of their outputs.

During his message to the participants during the closing program, Neheden Amiel Sarne, the main resource person for the training, encouraged them to keep practicing writing their proposals and to not be disheartened when they get rejections. 

After the delivery of the pilot course, IE’s Online Learning Unit will conduct a  thorough evaluation to gauge the success of the implementation and make necessary updates and improvements to the course. 

With six other online courses ready for pilot delivery and a few more in the pipeline, IRRI Education looks forward to expanding its online educational offerings in the future.

For more information about the pilot online course and updates on IRRI Education’s online course offerings, please visit education.irri.org or email us at openlearning@irri.org.

Researchers and staff from different agricultural institutions across the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Tanzania, Benin, and Ethiopia successfully completed the online training on Good Practices on Managing Research Data and Basic Data Analysis from August 28 – September 8, 2023.

The first part of the training, aims to provide participants with basic good practices for managing data, which covers organizing raw data in spreadsheets, data cleaning, checking, and validation. Participants were be given basic knowledge and several hands-on exercises promoting good practices in managing research data.

Participants share their experiences during the course and how it is relevant to their current work. “From day 1 to day 3, all the materials the resource person delivered helped support my daily work as an assistant scientist. Before, I just did minimum management of my research data, like doing simple spreadsheets with no metadata and using Google Drive to share and store my research data. However, after this training, I know that research data management is more complex than that,” said Ms. Devanda Putri.

Another participant, Mr. Guy Marius Assogba, shares “The course on Good Practices in Managing Research Data is an opportunity for me as junior scientist to be aware about the fraud in research and to have a good knowledge about how to collect my data in good way.”

On the second week, the training focused more on data analysis, acquainting the participants with the principles of experimental design, basic experimental designs used in crop research, analysis of variance, correlation analysis, and regression analysis. It introduced the Statistical Tool for Agricultural Research (STAR), a user-friendly software that uses GUI created in Java and functions developed in R to assist crop scientists in the design and analysis of data.

Participants expressed their satisfaction with the training on the STAR software. Mr. Rajan Chaudhary said, “As far as online courses go, this is among the best I’ve taken. There is no coding knowledge required for STAR, which is great for those who fear intense coding languages for data analysis. Overall, the resource persons did their best to make things clear to the participants. Thanks for giving us exercises and home assignments to boost our confidence“.

The training used a blend of synchronous and asynchronous sessions with lectures, group discussions, and practical hands-on exercises.

IRRI Education offers a variety of learning engagement for all stakeholders in the rice-based agri-food systems.

For inquiries, you may email education@irri.org.