IRRI Pioneer Interviews--Challenges for IRRI: Harold Kauffman

Harold Kauffman, IRRI plant pathologist, 1967-81, and joint coordinator of the International Rice Testing Program and later with the International Soybean Program, College of Agriculture, University of Illinois at Urbana

What I see on the challenge of International Rice Reserch Institute (IRRI; http://irri.org ) relates pretty much to my career moving from rice to soybeans, on which I spent approximately 21 years following my work on rice. The soybean industry has been driven primarily by the private sector.

I see rice continuing to be driven pretty much by the public sector. IRRI has worked with the public sector through government agencies and various groups and has protected the availability of germplasm to everybody. What I see is the biggest challenge is to bring in the private sector and all of its investment in resources and money and to not compromise the free access to the germplasm and other technologies. But I do think that the rice industry and the private sector have to step forward and do much more to support IRRI and other activities associated with it.

When I was working at IRRI, the idea was that IRRI might close down after 25 years because it would have completed its mission. So, as the transition has been taking place, clearly it has been shown that, over the past 20 years, its important to continue. Adjusting to the new changes is something thats been interesting to watch.

IRRI has a very key role to play and has to continue to refine what its goals and policies are to capture more funding. Funding is the biggest constraint that IRRI faces right now and thats kind of a paradox because, when I look at the soybean industry, there is all kind of money pouring into soybean research. Somehow, the rice industry has to learn from whats happening with soybeans, corn, and some of the other major crops and tap into some of the private-sector money that is available.

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