Message from Mr Mark Holderness, Executive Secretary, Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) ‘Following requests at the recent (July 2010) CGIAR Fund Council meeting, the CGIAR Consortium Board has now compiled and made available a list of all the consultations with partners that are being organized by the CGIAR Centers around their development of proposed … Continue reading
‘Moves by the the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to put science, technology and innovation firmly at the centre of its aid efforts have been enthusiastically endorsed by a rousing speech from secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in which she described herself as “a friend of science”. ‘”Innovation, science [and] technology must again become … Continue reading
The Kenya government has offered office facilities to the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Consortium Board. “President Mwai Kibaki made the pledge when he met and held discussions with the CGIAR Consortium Board Vice Chairman Mr Carl Hausmann who paid him a courtesy call at his Harambee House office on Monday.” During the talks, president Kibaki assured the … Continue reading
‘A British panel issued a sweeping exoneration on Wednesday of scientists caught up in the controversy known as Climategate, saying it found no evidence that they had manipulated their research to support preconceived ideas about global warming. ‘The researcher at the center of the controversy, a leading climatologist named Phil Jones, was immediately reinstated to … Continue reading
This question is being debated at ISDA 2010 (Innovation and Sustainable Development in Agriculture and Food), from 28 June to 1 July in Montpellier. This international symposium, organized by CIRAD, INRA and Montpellier SupAgro, sets out to understand, in the light of concrete examples, how research contributes and will continue to contribute to innovation, given … Continue reading
‘This March, African science ministers resolved that 2011 would be the start of an African decade for science, promising increased research budgets and attempts to use science and technology to drive development. A small, continent-wide research-grant programme, modelled on the European Union’s framework programmes, is in the works, as is a pan-African training network for … Continue reading
Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Secretary of State, this week (16 June 2010) announced that this year’s World Food Prize would be bestowed on leaders of two leading non-governmental humanitarian organizations focusing on reducing hunger and poverty — Jo Luck, President of Heifer International, and David Beckmann, President of Bread for the World. In her speech, … Continue reading
‘The message from our paper is not an inevitable disaster around the corner, but the need for continued vigilance.’–Malik Peiris Continue reading
In the May/June 2010 issue of Foreign Policy, agricultural policy analyst Robert Paarlberg argues that the trendy food causes of rich countries, whose sustainable mantra is ‘organic, local and slow’, ‘is no recipe for saving the world’s hungry millions’. ‘Too much food production is already organic, local and slow in the developing world,’ he says. … Continue reading
In science as in politics, easily grasped arguments grab headlines. And those that polarize issues can have even greater force. The Climategate saga that hit the press just before the Copenhagen conference on climate change late last year managed both to make headlines and to further polarize stands on whether climate is or is not … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 