The New Nation - Internet Edition

A Correspondent, Gazipur

The external project management review team led by Dr Robert Tripp New Zealand and Dr Edmeades visited Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) in Gazipur on Monday last.

BRRI Director General Dr Md Nur-e-Elahi welcomed the team, and briefed them about the research activities and achievements of BRRI. He prioritised the areas of international cooperation, especially in the field of adverse conditions like salinity, submergence, cold and drought. He also stressed the need for quick dissemination of BRRI developed technologies including seed quickly to farmers' level, and human resource development on frontier technologies and capacity building for strengthening research in the context of climate change.

Later, the team visited the Bangladesh Rice Knowledge Bank (BRKB), a website-based rice technology transfer system started for the first time in this region in 2004. They also visited the experimental plot on submergence tolerant rice and on-going training on marker-assisted selection breeding.

During inter-active session, IRR Liasion Scientist for Bangladesh Dr M A Hamid Miah, BRRI Director (Research) Dr M A Salam, Director (Admin) Dr A W Julfiquar, Chief Scientific Officer Dr Md Zahirul Islam, Principal Scientific Officers Dr Jiban Krishna Biswas and Dr Md Helel Uddin Ahmed, and senior scientists and officials were present.

The team expressed their satisfaction about the progress so far achieved by BRRI.