5 August 2011
No. 1478
Public-private partnership for the poor
DuPont Pioneer explores partnership with ICRISAT Purposeful partnership offers big opportunities for pro-poor agricultural investment and innovation. Under its new strategic plan to 2020, ICRISAT pursues partnerships with the private sector through collaboration in priority research areas to achieve its vision of a prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics.
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ommitted to harness purposeful partnerships with the private sector, ICRISAT opened its doors to DuPont Pioneer to become a strategic partner in mobilizing cutting-edge science and technology for the dryland poor. Towards this, a high-level research leadership team headed by Dr John Sopper, Senior Vice-President for Crop Genetics & Development of DuPont Pioneer visited ICRISAT on 3 August. The DuPont Pioneer team was received by Director General William Dar, who provided an overview of
ICRISAT’s Inclusive Market-Oriented Development (IMOD) approach – a dynamic progression from subsistence towards market-oriented agriculture and a pathway to prosperity for smallholder farmers. During the visit, various areas of mutual interest were discussed by the DuPont Pioneer team with ICRISAT scientists led by DDG-R Dave Hoisington. Key priority research areas include: IMOD and seed systems, hybrid pigeonpea, doubled haploidy in pearl millet and constraints to its productivity (heat tolerance and downy mildew resistance), seed
The DuPont Pioneer high-level team headed by Dr John Sopper, Senior Vice-President for Crop Genetics & Development (6th from right) with Dr Dar and ICRISAT senior scientists at the SatVenture. to page 2 ...4