yesterday was spent under the shades of the luxurious KLCC (convention center) plenary hall. i joined the mahathir science award lecture presented by Prof Gurdev Singh Khush from UC Davis. i decided to go to this lecture mostly due to the topic presented by the most reknowned person in rice breeding. plus, i need a self motivation to nurture my interest in this newly appointed direction of my quest in the agriculture field.
as early as 7 am i took the ERL to KL sentral followed by the putraLRT to suria klcc ever-crowded station. there i made my way by foot to the KLCC. after the registration, i seated my self just behind the VIPs chair, always in the middle seat. having seated near the VIPs, whom are all very distinguished (and passionate) people in agriculture, i feel humbled and inspired. they are all the forerunners in agriculture research and developemnt particularly in Malaysia and some of them world wide.
the lecture hall was filled not only with academicians but also future young leaders from 2 secondary schools. kudos to their teacher for such exposure. as i skimmed thru the hall, my eyes were caught on one of the awardee, Prof Khush, walking inside the hall with his wife (well, behind every succesful man there is a supporting woman, and vice versa..kan abang? hehe).
after an impressive introduction by the MC, he started the lecture series in the morning part, explaining generally about a topic so dear to his heart: how to overcome the threats in global food security. this is one of the many reasons why he started breeding rice to help the poor people in developing countries. his honesty and passion were shown on his face as he listed some of the challenges faced in rice agriculture industry. the recent hike on grain prices (rice, maize and wheat generally) had a toll on poor developing countries that depend on rice as staple food. the switch on high value food such as meat, poultry and fruits requires grains and cereals in their production. furthermore, the use of some grains in bioethanol production competes with their original purpose of being food sources. planting grains especially lowland rice requires the use of natural resources and mostly water for irrigation and this can be a problem as the water became silted and some are polluted with fertilizers. on a larger scale, the globalwarming has affected rice production as yield decreases with the raise of night temperature.
he provided some approaches his team did as plant breeders, agronomists, pathologists, entomologists and many other key players in agriculture can do to overcome and hopefully alleviate the global food problems in poor countries.
in the evening session, we had a more scientific discussion about his works so far. his colleagues and himself at IRRI have developed several improved rice varieties majorly to increase yield potential by increasing biomass and harvest index. they also focused on improving grain quality, both pre and post harvest. some other major contributions also include the shortening of growth duration, biotic and abiotic resistance (tolerance) and quality improvement in micronutrient content of rice grain.
he achieves this via many routes, conventional breeding, inter and intra specific breeding, hybrids and genetic engineering. as genetic and breeding develops, he also make use of the molecular assisted selection in his breeding programs, especially in tagging multiple resistant genes scattered all over the rice genome. the latest focus of rice breeding has been ideotype breeding, to modify the plant architecture to better meet current demand.
this morning, as i searched his publications for my future references in my work in rice insyaa ALlah, i was really impressed by Prof Khush's work. he served his life to help the needy, in academics and in life alike. i would like to continue reading his papers now..my gratefulness goes to him. may Allah reward him graciously and may Allah help in to be like him, a philantrophist, a hardworker, for the sake of others, to serve the needy insyaa Allah
