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 Irrigated Rice Research Consortium
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Dr. Bala—life in IRRI and Africa, and giving back to India
After 15 memorable years at the
(Photo by A. Javellana)
Dr. Bala served as IRRI Africa coordinator since
2005, and was involved in setting up rice research and development programs in
the eastern, central, and southern Africa. He also worked in the training and
delivery of IRRI technologies in both Asia and Africa. As the Crop Resources
Management Network Dr. Bala first stepped aboard IRRI in 1991 as chief of the IRRI-Madagascar Project, advising and training staff on soil and resource management and rice-based cropping systems. Before IRRI, he spent 16 years of research in the African countries of Nigeria, Rwanda, Ghana, Cameroon, and Madagascar and has many exciting stories to tell. “It has been very interesting for these 30 years of my life,” Dr. Bala recalls. “I lived in small villages with no water or electricity. We collected rainwater to quench our thirst and cook our food. We used kerosene refrigerators with a lamp at the bottom. I lived like that in Rwanda for five years.” IRRI’s stimulating scientific atmosphere has been a source of great satisfaction for Dr.Bala. In the last five years, Dr. Bala was heavily involved with the institute’s Training Center, co-presenting the rice production course and a workshop on scientific writing and presentation skills for young scientists. “I really want to share what I know, and all the technologies, all the information, all the skills that I have,” he says. In Dr. Bala’s 15 years at IRRI, he cites the leaf color chart—a simple piece of technology used for fertilizer management—as one of the most successful developments for rice.
Dr. Bala (second from left) trains partners from nongovernment organizations, national agencies, and the private sector on crop need-based nitrogen management in rice, using the chlorophyll meter and leaf color chart that he developed in collaboration with PhilRice. (IRRI Training Center photo) He also considers integrated crop management (ICM) as an IRRI success story. ICM brings together technologies to provide farmers with a basket of crop management options that offer solutions to a wide array of problems. He adds direct seeding and the drum seeder as booming IRRI technologies. Dr. Bala is also a pioneer of the modified mat nursery technology, which is now being adopted all over Indonesia and in some parts of India, and was recently introduced in Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh, East Timor, and the Philippines (see Modified mat nursery on page 10. Upon his return to his hometown in Voimedu, India, he plans to teach and has taken on IRRI’s goal to reduce poverty and hunger, starting with his own village. Dr. Bala has been cooking up a project called “Revive Your Village,” in which he plans to establish—with his own money—a Village Knowledge Center in his hometown that will serve as a play area for preschool children, a reading room and lending library, a computer room, a preventive health advisory clinic, and a training hall. “What I want to do is to improve the education and training facilities in the rural areas so as to remove the gap between the skills and capabilities of rural and urban children,” Dr. Bala explains. “I want to go back to my village and develop a model that can be duplicated all over India and in other countries as well.” Dr. Bala says he has a long way to go to fulfill his dream, but it is his way of giving back to his country all the great opportunities that have come his way.
“When I look back, I’m really proud that I had the
strength and courage to work under extreme conditions and with different groups
of people,” he says. “For each country, each university, and each institute I
have worked with, I feel satisfaction
Trina Mendoza (t.mendoza@cgiar.org) |
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International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Dr. Vethaiya Balasubramanian, a.k.a. “Dr. Bala,”
retired in August 2006. He left behind many significant achievements and
contributions to IRRI and the science community, and took with him good memories
and a dream for his village in Voimedu, India. 
