MSI Grants: PhD Sandwich Scholarship Program
The MSI Grant by USAID is one of the initiatives under the Improving the quality of life of smallholder rice farmers in Asia and Africa through introduction, on-farm testing and scaling of improved germplasm and climate smart agricultural practices. Under this program IRRI through IRRI Education will work closely with USAID and selected Minority Serving Institutions in USA, in helping build a new cadre of rice scientists.
MSI grants are aimed to develop the research capacity of qualified MSI students at the PhD level. Scholars will be capable of designing, conducting, and reporting on research that addresses farmers’ needs within national priorities and within a global context. The academic programs will be regionally based and will link with MSI universities. Preference will be given to a sandwich program approach in which the research agenda focuses on local issues that also contribute to global knowledge. The scholars’ time will be partly spent at IRRI headquarters in the Philippines or in any country where the research will be conducted.
Under this grant, the PhD Sandwich Scholarship Program will enable six PhD students enrolled in a participating MSI to come to IRRI under the supervision of their university supervisors and IRRI scientists to conduct their research for a maximum period of 1.5 years depending on the degree requirements.
Apply for MSI Grants
- Deadline of applications: June 30, 2023
All applicants must:
- have gained admission to an approved course in an MSI*, have finished all Ph.D. coursework requirements, and/or be able to complete university registration within a minimal time (maximum of 1.5 years)
- be involved in a field of rice science and related systems research
- be willing to work on any of the identified areas for the Ph.D. research
- be endorsed by his or her university supervisor (if already enrolled and applying for a sandwich program)
- possess adequate proficiency in the English language
- not be more than 35 years old at the time of application
The scholarships are for a period of one to one and a half years and are awarded through a competitive selection process. A Selection Committee, composed of the respective research platform leads, program leaders, the scientist who proposed the research topic and an IRRI Education team member, will guide the selection process. The program will award a total of 6 slots.
Qualified applicants must fill-out an online application through this apply button.
- Each scholarship covers airfare roundtrips and travel expenses, stipends, medical and accident insurance, laptop computer allowance, and research support. In special cases where additional training is deemed necessary, expenditures incurred to improve language proficiency and computer literacy may be covered under the scholarship.
- Deadline of applications: June 30, 2023
- Click here to apply!
Available Research Areas
Please refer to the table below for the available research topics and the respective IRRI supervising scientists. Note that, while there are eight research topics available, the PhD Sandwich Scholarship Program for 2023 will select and award only three students with their chosen research topic.
Seed is a critical input. However, for crop seeds, which are volume intensive, the nodal institutions responsible for the distribution of quality seeds are majorly public sector organizations. There are also several small to medium private companies, which cater mostly to smallholder farmers. Most well-equipped large seed MNCs focus on high-margin crops and hybrids. The public and SME-led distribution systems are often challenged with the absence of manpower, timeliness, resources, and more to make the required quantity of quality seeds available to smallholder farmers. The dealership network is often not reaching the last mile farmers.
In this context through major policy thrust in South Asia, several farmer/community-led seed producer organizations/ companies in the form of enterprises (either led by collectives or by rural individual entrepreneurs) have been piloted to establish alternative seed system channels to strengthen seed delivery access and localization. Several such models are now in use in India and Bangladesh. The study aims to dive in detail into the strengths, weaknesses, and potential opportunities around such alternative institutions, their success or failure factors, and the needed support from the Policy domain and capture how these institutions can affect seed access, faster varietal scaling, and adoption among the farmers. The social, economic, and market aspects need to be studied for these institutions/enterprises.
Key Supervising Scientists
Dr. Swati Nayak
Scientist II – Seed Systems and Product Management
Dr. Sankalp Bhosale
Research Leader – Product Development & Varietal Replacement
DSR (Direct Seeded Rice) is a method of rice cultivation where the seeds are sown directly into the field, rather than being transplanted from seedlings. DSR rice cultivation can save water, labor, and time compared to traditional rice cultivation methods. However, it requires careful management of soil moisture, weed control, and nutrient management to achieve optimal yields. Among them, Iron deficiency tolerance under direct-seeded conditions of rice is one of the critical traits which hampers plant growth during the early establishment of the trails.
To identify the genomic region(s) associated with iron deficiency tolerance we intend to utilize Artificial intelligence (AI) based models for trait discovery. AI models involve the use of machine learning algorithms to analyze large amounts of genomic data associated with the targeted traits which are complex in nature. Machine-learning and deep-learning-based developed models will be helpful for AI-based trait mapping to identify the specific genomic region(s) associated with tolerance to iron deficiency in rice plants grown under DSR conditions. Generated information can be useful to develop better DSR varieties.
Key Supervising Scientists
Dr. Pallavi Sinha
Scientist I – Plant Breeding
Rising labor costs associated with transplanted rice (TPR) coupled with increasing costs of irrigation, water scarcity, and concerns about the contribution of rice farming to global warming have made TPR less appealing to farmers. Direct-seeded rice (DSR) is an alternative method that could reduce labor, irrigation water requirements, and greenhouse gas emissions in rice-based farming systems. Still, most of the farmers who are currently conducting DSR use traditional techniques hence they do not reap the full benefits of the technology.
Under the USAID / Bayer project (2023—2025), numerous on-farm trials and demonstrations on DSR will be conducted together with farmers and other stakeholders in Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique. After the project, a study will be conducted to identify the constraints to the adoption and continuous use of DSR, compare DSR and TPR crop establishment systems in terms of labor cost, water requirements, and greenhouse gas emissions as well as examine perceptions of DSR among male and female farmers. In this regard, a survey will be conducted of farmers who will conduct DSR during the project period (2023—25), and a study conducted to determine their continuous use of DSR in the three countries. The findings of the study would be key in guiding policy interventions that will enhance the adoption of DSR and hence promote environmental sustainability in a world challenged by climate change.
Key Supervising Scientists
Dr. Daniel Menge
Scientist I – Seed Systems and Product Management
Dr. Ajay Panchbhai
Senior Scientist I – Seed Systems and Product Management
Rice consumption in Kenya has been increasing more than any other crop. 80% of rice produced in the country is mostly produced in irrigated ecologies which is resource and time-intensive and can negatively affect the overall economy of cultivation for smallholder farmers. DSR conserves critical resources like water, fertilizers, and soil health, addresses the labour shortage, and would offer a solution to the golden apple snail menace being experienced in the major rice-producing ecosystem in the country. In dry direct seeded rice, dry seed is sown to dry soil or moist soil often with a slight soil covering.
The seed germinates in response to flush irrigation or high rainfall. Hence, a long period without standing water after sowing can reduce the vulnerability of dry seeded to golden apple snails. Such limited moisture conditions have the potential to immobilize and prevent golden apple snails from causing severe damage at the seedling stage when rice is most vulnerable. Although the technology has been in existence and applied to control damage to rice by the golden apple snails elsewhere in other rice-growing regions, the technology has not been integrated into the rice cultivation system in Kenya. This research aims to investigate the effect of different rice establishment methods to control damage by golden apple snails. The findings of the study will be key in developing a sustainable rice cultivation technology for major rice-growing areas in Kenya.
Key Supervising Scientists
Dr. Ajay Panchbhai
Senior Scientist I – Seed Systems and Product Management
Dr. Rosemary Murori
Scientist II – Plant Breeding
The project will be defined by the student in collaboration with the supervision team and will focus on i) mapping direct rice seeding field conditions (water status, yield, etc) and ii) upscaling/mapping DSR suitability across the landscape. Geography will consider Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique) and SA (India, Nepal, Bangladesh).
Key Supervising Scientists
Mr. Amit Srivastava
Scientist I – GIS and Remote Sensing
Dr. Pavan Kumar Yeggina
Senior Specialist – GIS and Remote Sensing
Dr. Renaud Serge Alexis Mathieu
Senior Scientist I Geospatial Science
Carbon footprint (CF) is expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emitted by an individual, organization, process, product, or event within a specified boundary. Agriculture, particularly rice production, causes a high CF from continuously flooded fields, high input uses (e.g., seeds, fertilizer, pesticide, and energy), rice straw burning and incorporation, and postharvest losses.
CF is highly interested in related sectors such as research and development, policy, financing, etc. There are inventory data and tools for quantifying agricultural CF at the global level, such as IPCC, and country level, such as the Sector and CF-Rice developed by IRRI. However, there is a lack of comprehensive models to synchronize and simulate CF for different rice-based agroecological systems. This Ph.D. research will develop a model associated with a tool for comprehensively analyzing CF along rice-based value chains, including low-land and upland rice production. The model will be developed based on a life-cycle assessment approach considering all probable factors such as climate, cropping systems, soils, water, agronomic inputs, mechanization, postharvest, residues, logistics, etc. The research will collect data from on-field measurements and use advanced technologies such as GIS, drones, etc. Databases and models built from this research would be valuable to develop related monitoring-reporting-verification systems and feed to the global GHG emission database such as IPCC.
Key Supervising Scientists
Dr. Virender Kumar
Senior Scientist II – Weed Science and Systems Agronomy
Dr. Hung Van Nguyen
Senior Scientist I – Mechanization and Post-harvest
Agricultural technology adoption (such as climate-smart rice varieties) is crucial for total factor productivity improvement and sustainable agricultural production but remains challenging in developing countries. Evidence suggests that the adoption of farming technologies is low in developing countries for various reasons, including a lack of awareness and consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the technologies (Takahashi et al., 2020). This is especially true for rice technologies, including climate-smart rice varieties, zinc rice varieties, and improved aromatic rice varieties such as Komboka rice. One of the reasons behind the poor willingness to pay for rice technologies is the failure to account for the demand side in developing rice technologies and rice development strategies for a long time (Demont et al., 2017). A market-oriented value chain is pivotal to technology adoption, especially for new rice varieties. Like all other producers, rice farmers, too, are looking to maximize profits and minimize risks.
New rice varieties can help maximize profits if and only if i) consumers are willing to consume the products from these varieties, ii) they are willing to pay more for them than traditional varieties, and iii) farmers are willing to adopt these varieties. Therefore, it is critical to understand farmers’ willingness to adopt the new rice varieties and consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for rice products from these varieties before they are distributed to farmers. Once new varieties are developed and distributed to farmers, understanding the impacts of new varieties on livelihood outcomes is of paramount interest to policymakers, donors, and researchers. In the proposed research, we intend to use this holistic approach to provide IRRI and its national partners with useful and rigorous insights on the adoption, impacts, and consumers’ preferences for improved rice technologies.
Key Supervising Scientists
Dr. Valerien Pede
Senior Scientist II Agricultural Economics
Weedy rice has emerged as a major threat to rice production in direct-seeded rice (DSR) systems because it is a highly competitive and difficult-to-control weed. In-season control options are limited, with the exception of hand weeding, because of its genetic, morphological, and phenological similarities to cultivated rice. As a result, there are no selective in-season herbicide options available for its management. In addition, changing climate is making weedy rice management more challenging as initial results show that under climate change conditions, weedy rice will become more problematic. Therefore, there is a need to develop integrated solutions for weedy rice management in DSR systems.
Knowledge of the ecology and biology of weedy rice can help in designing weedy rice control tactics. Understanding of factors affecting seed dormancy, seed shattering, seed longevity, seed mortality, and emergence and growth of seedlings would help in identifying weak points for weedy rice management. It is important to understand these factors under changing climatic conditions to develop a climate-resilient and sustainable integrated weedy rice management program.
Key Supervising Scientists
Dr. Valerien Pede
Senior Scientist II Agricultural Economics
Dr. Virender Kumar
Senior Scientist II – Weed Science and Systems Agronomy
We provide a gender-sensitive environment and strongly encourage women applicants.