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PRODID:-//Iowa State University//www.lectures.iastate.edu//EN
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CATEGORIES:APPOINTMENT
DTSTAMP:20091124T155750Z
DTSTART:20091013T010000Z
DTEND:20091013T010000Z
TRANSP:OPAQUE
SUMMARY:Lecture: \"Revitalizing Agricultural Research for Gl
 obal Food Security\"
LOCATION:Sun Room\, Memorial Union
URL:http://www.lectures.iastate.edu/lecture/18712
UID:http://www.lectures.iastate.edu/lecture/18712
DESCRIPTION:http://www.lectures.iastate.edu/lecture/18712\n\
 n2009 World Food Prize winner Gebisa Ejeta. The Ethiopian na
 tive's work to develop sorghum hybrids resistant to drought 
 and the devastating Striga weed (witchweed) increased the pr
 oduction and availability of one of the world's five princip
 al grains and enhanced the food supply of millions of people
  in sub-Saharan Africa. A reception and student poster displ
 ay will precede the lecture from 7 to 8 p.m. in the South Ba
 llroom\, MU.\n--------------------\nEjeta has worked to inte
 grate his scientific breakthroughs with farmer education pro
 grams and soil and water conservation initiatives and to emp
 ower subsistence farmers and promote economic development in
  rural Africa. Ejeta earned his Ph.D. in plant breeding and 
 genetics at Purdue University\, where he later became a facu
 lty member and today holds a distinguished professorship. It
  was during his post-graduate work at the International Crop
  Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) offi
 ce in Sudan that he developed his first hybrid sorghum.\n\nT
 he 2009 Norman Borlaug Lecture and part of the World Affairs
  Series.\n\nOVERCOMING EARLY OBSTACLES THROUGH EDUCATION\nBo
 rn in 1950\, Gebisa Ejeta grew up in a one-room thatched hut
  with a mud floor\, in a rural village in west-central Ethio
 pia. His mother's deep belief in education and her struggle 
 to provide her son with access to local teachers and schools
  provided the young Ejeta with the means to rise out of pove
 rty and hardship. His mother made arrangements for him to at
 tend school in a neighboring town. Walking 20 kilometers eve
 ry Sunday night to attend school during the week and then ba
 ck home on Friday\, he rapidly ascended through eight grades
  and passed the national exam qualifying him to enter high s
 chool.\n\nEjeta's high academic standing earned him financia
 l assistance and entrance to the secondary-level Jimma Agric
 ultural and Technical School\, which had been established by
  Oklahoma State University under the U.S. government's Point
  Four Program. After graduating with distinction\, Ejeta ent
 ered Alemaya College (also established by OSU and supported 
 by the U.S. Agency for International Development) in eastern
  Ethiopia. He received his bachelor's degree in plant scienc
 e in 1973.\n\nIn 1973\, his college mentor introduced Ejeta 
 to a renowned sorghum researcher\, Dr. John Axtell of Purdue
  University\, who invited him to assist in collecting sorghu
 m species from around the country. Dr. Axtell was so impress
 ed with Ejeta that he invited him to become his graduate stu
 dent at Purdue University. This invitation came at a time wh
 en Ethiopia was about to enter a long period of political in
 stability which would keep Ejeta from returning to his home 
 country for nearly 25 years.\n\nEjeta entered Purdue in 1974
 \, earning his Ph.D. in plant breeding and genetics. He late
 r became a faculty member at Purdue\, where today he holds a
  distinguished professorship.\n\nUpon completing his graduat
 e degree\, Dr. Ejeta accepted a position as a sorghum resear
 cher at the International Crop Research Institute for the Se
 mi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) office in Sudan. During his time a
 t ICRISAT\, Dr. Ejeta developed the first hybrid sorghum var
 ieties for Africa\, which were drought-tolerant and high-yie
 lding.\n\nWith the local importance of sorghum in the human 
 diet (made into breads\, porridges\, and beverages)\, and th
 e vast potential of dryland agriculture in Sudan\, Dr. Ejeta
 's drought-tolerant hybrids brought dramatic gains in crop p
 roductivity and also catalyzed the initiation of a commercia
 l sorghum seed industry in Sudan.\n\nHis Hageen Dura-1\, as 
 the hybrid was named\, was released in 1983 following field 
 trials in which the hybrids out-yielded traditional sorghum 
 varieties by 50 to 100 percent. Its superior grain qualities
  contributed to its rapid spread and wide acceptance by farm
 ers\, who found that yields increased to more than 150 perce
 nt greater than local sorghum\, far surpassing the percentag
 e gain in the trials.\n\nDr. Ejeta's dedication to helping p
 oor farmers feed themselves and their families and rise out 
 of poverty propelled his work in leveraging the gains of his
  hybrid breeding breakthrough. He urged the establishment of
  structures to monitor production\, processing\, certificati
 on\, and marketing of hybrid seed-and farmer-education progr
 ams in the use of fertilizers\, soil and water conservation\
 , and other supportive crop management practices.\n\nBy 1999
 \, one million acres of Hageen Dura-1 had been harvested by 
 hundreds of thousands of Sudanese farmers\, and millions of 
 Sudanese had been fed with grain produced by Hageen Dura-1.\
 n\nAnother drought-tolerant sorghum hybrid\, NAD-1\, was dev
 eloped for conditions in Niger by Dr. Ejeta and one of his g
 raduate students at Purdue University in 1992. This cultivar
  has had yields 4 or 5 times the national sorghum average.\n
 \nUsing some of the drought-tolerant germplasm from the hybr
 ids in Niger and Sudan\, Dr. Ejeta also developed elite sorg
 hum inbred lines for the U.S. sorghum hybrid industry. He ha
 s released over 70 parental lines for the U.S. seed industry
 's use in commercial sorghum hybrids in both their domestic 
 and international markets.\n\nDefeating the Scourge of Strig
 a\nDr. Ejeta's next breakthrough came in the 1990s\, the cul
 mination of his research to conquer the greatest biological 
 impediment to food production in Africa - the deadly parasit
 ic weed Striga\, known commonly as witchweed\, which devasta
 tes yields of crops including maize\, rice\, pearl millet\, 
 sugarcane\, and sorghum\, thus severely limiting food availa
 bility. A 2009 UN Environmental Programme report estimated t
 hat Striga plagues 40% of arable savannah land and over 100 
 million people in Africa.\n\nPrevious attempts by African so
 rghum farmers to control the deadly weed\, including crop ma
 nagement techniques and application of herbicides\, had fail
 ed until Dr. Ejeta and his Purdue colleague Dr. Larry Butler
  formulated a novel research paradigm for genetic control of
  this scourge. With financial support from the Rockefeller F
 oundation and USAID\, they developed an approach integrating
  genetics\, agronomy\, and biochemistry that focused on unra
 veling the intricate relationships between the parasitic Str
 iga and the host sorghum plant. Eventually\, they identified
  genes for Striga resistance and transferred them into local
 ly adapted sorghum varieties and improved sorghum cultivars.
  The new sorghum also possessed broad adaptation to differen
 t African ecological conditions and farming systems.\n\nThe 
 dissemination of the new sorghum varieties in Striga-endemic
  African countries was initially facilitated in 1994 by Dr. 
 Ejeta\, working closely with World Vision International and 
 Sasakawa2000. Those organizations coordinated a pilot progra
 m\, with USAID funding\, that distributed eight tons of seed
  to Eritrea\, Ethiopia\, Kenya\, Mali\, Mozambique\, Niger\,
  Rwanda\, Senegal\, Somalia\, Sudan\, Tanzania\, and Zimbabw
 e. The yield increases from the improved Striga-resistant cu
 ltivars have been as much as four times the yield of local v
 arieties\, even in the severe drought areas.\n\nIn 2002-2003
 \, Dr. Ejeta introduced an integrated Striga management (ISM
 ) package\, again through a pilot program funded by USAID\, 
 to deploy in Eritrea\, Ethiopia\, and Tanzania along with th
 e Striga-resistant sorghum varieties he and his colleagues h
 ad developed at Purdue. This ISM package achieved further in
 creased crop productivity through a synergistic combination 
 of weed resistance in the host plant\, soil-fertility enhanc
 ement\, and water conservation.\n\nBy partnering with leader
 s and farmers across sub-Saharan Africa and educational inst
 itutions in the U.S. and abroad\, Dr. Ejeta has personally t
 rained and inspired a new generation of African agricultural
  scientists that is carrying forth his work.\n\nDr. Ejeta's 
 scientific breakthroughs in breeding drought-tolerant and St
 riga-resistant sorghum have been combined with his persisten
 t efforts to foster economic development and the empowerment
  of subsistence farmers through the creation of agricultural
  enterprises in rural Africa. He has led his colleagues in w
 orking with national and local authorities and nongovernment
 al agencies so that smallholder farmers and rural entreprene
 urs can catalyze efforts to improve crop productivity\, stre
 ngthen nutritional security\, increase the value of agricult
 ural products\, and boost the profitability of agricultural 
 enterprise - thus fostering profound impacts on lives and li
 velihoods on broader scale across the African continent.\n\n
 Contact: lectures@iastate.edu\nPhone: 515-294-9934
PRIORITY:5
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