CIMMYT review 1981

Abstract

Significant changes have recently occurred in the CIMMYT leadership. We have lost the services of Dr. KeithW. Finlay, Deputy Director General-Research, and Dr. R. Glenn Anderson, Director of the Wheat Program, who each succumbed to cancer. Their contributions to CIMMYT will live on, although their leadership, experience, and dedication will be sorely missed. To help fill this void, we have recently appointed Dr. Clive James as Deputy Director General for Research. He comes to CIMMYT with strong credentials as a scientist and in research administration. CIMMYT's collaboration with agricultural scientists in over 120 developing countries continued to strengthen in 1980. New regional programs were establ ished for North and West Africa (wheat), West Africa (maize, in collaboration with IITA), and South and Southeast Asia (wheat). We continue to broaden our crop improvement objectives to include greater attention to those rainfed production areas characterized by greater agroclimatic stresses. Our increased emphasis on crop management research is being strengthened through the collaboration of our regional agronomists and economists in national on-farm research programs. During 1980, additional facilities were completed to accommodate visiting scientists made possible by a grant from the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, and a new wheat germplasm facility, financed through a grant from the Government of Japan, will be operational in 1981. To help guide program priorities and activities in the 1980s, we recently completed a program review and planning exercise. Our program priorities were exposed to critical review and debate at a planning conference held at CIMMYT in April 1980. The changing comparative advantages and the tasks which must be performed during the 1980s by the many organizations concerned with agricultural development in the developing world were highlighted by many participants at the conference. Outside observers and representatives of donor agencies identified key research and training activities in which CIMMYT must playa vital role in the years ahead. In particular, germplasm development (including more collaboration in basic research activities), training (shifting ever more to the support of in-country training activities and train-the-trainer programs), and the development and diffusion of improved research procedures were singled out as key activities for CIMMYT involvement. Given the changing and increasing demands being made on CIMMYT by developing country research organizations, we must continue to secure modest expansions, in real terms, of the generous support provided in the past, as well as to maintain sufficient program flexibility if we are to respond effectively to the new challenges and research opportunities within our mandate.