The two-week visit of the External Program and Management Review (EPMR) team to South Asia involved 7200 km of travel across the length and breadth of India, and produced a few surprises.
Doug Pachico, Chair of the EPMR Panel and Lucy Sun from National Taiwan University visited AVRDC South Asia in Hyderabad, India accompanied by AVRDC Deputy Director General, Administration and Services Yin-fu Chang from 10-14 September 2014.
Regional staff gave presentations on the range of activities being undertaken locally and the EPMR team spent extensive time reviewing the research fields. They also met with International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) senior management and scientists to review the collaborative partnership between the two centers.
Viewing AVRDC’s home garden designs, which can supply important nutrients for families year-round.
Dr. Chang’s unexpected, but welcome announcement that the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) will fund the building of a second floor for the South Asia office was greeted with enthusiastic appreciation by regional staff. ICRISAT has agreed to facilitate the construction process.
From September 14 to 24, Doug Pachico criss-crossed India with South Asia Regional Director Warwick Easdown, Legume Breeder Ram Nair and Postharvest Specialist Jun Acedo to Delhi in the north, Ranchi in the east and finally to Bangalore in the south of India for meetings with dozens of partners. “There is a need for AVRDC to balance both the opportunities to enhance national economic development as well as to address the livelihood needs of the poorest,” Doug said.
In Delhi he met with senior staff of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) as well as our CGIAR and Association of International Research and Development Centers for Agriculture (AIRCA) colleagues. In Ranchi and Bangalore he visited two of the most important ICAR horticultural research centers for extensive discussions with their staff and to view their work.
Ranchi is the capital of Jharkhand, one of the poorest states in India and home to a large tribal population. Doug met with our long-term NGO partners there and viewed the production of home garden seed packs. He then travelled to the distant hills of West Bengal to see AVRDC’s work promoting vegetable production among tribal communities in partnership with our NGO partner PRADAN. There has been a major expansion of summer tomato production as a result of AVRDC interventions.
Bangalore is the center of the vegetable seed production industry in South Asia and there Doug had extensive discussions with one of our major commercial seed industry partners currently supporting AVRDC work to test virus resistant tomato lines across South Asia.
Although AVRDC’s project work in South Asia is spread across a wide area, the EPMR team was able to see key project work and gain valuable input from our partners in the public, NGO and private sectors to help shape the future strategic direction of AVRDC.
