Los Baños, Philippines – A veteran Vietnamese plant breeder has won the Senadhira Rice Research Award for 2008 for his outstanding contributions to the development of many popular rice varieties in Vietnam.
Bui Chi Buu, director general of the Institute of Agricultural Science for Southern Vietnam, based in Ho Chi Minh City, has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in rice breeding during which he has emphasized grain-quality improvement, salt tolerance, and resistance to pests and diseases such as blast fungus, bacterial blight, and brown planthopper.
Dr. Buu, also a former director of the Cuu Long [Mekong] Delta Rice Research Institute, received the award today at a meeting on the Challenge Program for Water and Food, held at International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) headquarters in Los Baños, Philippines.
His efforts have led to the certification of many popular rice varieties now being grown by farmers throughout the Mekong Delta, the most productive rice region in Vietnam and the area most responsible for the country's status as the world's second-largest rice exporter.
David Mackill, IRRI senior plant breeder and chair of the award selection committee, noted that Dr. Buu's career has spanned an extraordinary period for Vietnam.
"Dr. Buu has seen the country grow from one of the world's largest rice importers in the 1970s to one of the largest exporters now," said Dr. Mackill. "There is no doubt that his work has played a large part in Vietnam's rice success."
Dr. Buu also has an impressive body of work in the conservation of germplasm (seeds and the genetic material they contain), with an emphasis on wild rice species. He has fostered many Vietnamese rice research scholars and has an extraordinary publication record that includes papers and books on such topics as the application of biotechnology, quantitative genetics, crop breeding, bioinformatics, and the aromatic rice of Vietnam. Internationally, Dr. Buu has been a regional secretary of the Society for the Advancement of Breeding Research in Asia and Oceania for 10 years, a contributor to the Rockefeller Foundation's Rice Biotechnology Program, and a collaborator in Ohio State University's Gene Flow Project.
The award is named after Dharmawansa Senadhira, one of IRRI's most successful rice breeders, who died tragically in a traffic accident in Bangladesh in 1998.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is the world's leading rice research and training center. Based in the Philippines, with offices in 13 other countries, IRRI is an autonomous, nonprofit institution focused on improving the well-being of present and future generations of rice farmers and consumers, particularly those with low incomes, while preserving natural resources. IRRI is one of 15 centers funded through the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private donor agencies (www.cgiar.org).
For information, contact Adam Barclay, IRRI, DAPO Box 7777, Metro Manila, Philippines;
tel +63-2-580-5600; fax: +63-2-580-5699; email a.barclay@cgiar.org.
Web sites: IRRI Home (www.irri.org), IRRI Library (http://ricelib.irri.cgiar.org), Rice Knowledge Bank (www.knowledgebank.irri.org)