English / 52 pages / PDF / 4MB
The 5th issue of CGW this year.
Link:
CGW 2008 05
Enjoy and have a nice day.
WIPO Magazine, June 2008
English | 32 pages | PDF | 1.4 MB
English | 32 pages | PDF | 1.4 MB
The bimonthly WIPO Magazine (available in English, French and Spanish) aims to inform readers about WIPO-led activities, and to show intellectual property, creativity and innovation at work across the world. New Rice for Africa Climate change, drought, desertification, soaring food prices, hunger …Nowhere do these inter-twined threats to development menace more starkly than in Africa.
To mitigate the threats, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called, at the annual meeting of the Commission for Sustainable Development in May, for a fresh generation of agricultural technologies to usher in a second green revolution, - “one which permits sustainable yield improvements with minimal environmental damage and contributes to sustainable development goals.”
Plant-breeding technologies – often combining traditional knowledge with cutting edge biotechnological techniques – are already making real impact in meeting the challenge. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Rice Market Monitor reports that rice production in Africa has risen consecutively for over seven years, and is forecast to rise further in 2008 to 23.2 million tonnes. A major factor in this growth has been the success of a new type of rice, known as the New Rice for Africa – or Nerica.
The new rice was the result of years of work by a team of plant breeders and molecular biologists led by Sierra Leonean scientist Monty Jones at the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA – now the Africa Rice Center). When Dr. Jones set up the biotechnology research program in 1991, some 240 million people in West Africa were dependant on rice as their primary source of food energy and protein, but the majority of Africa’s rice was imported, at an annual cost of US$1 billion. WARDA’s objective was to produce a rice variety which was better suited to the harsh conditions in African. ...
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