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News Releases
- US Patent
Office Rejects US Company's Patent Protection for Bean Commonly
Grown by Latin American Farmers
Controversial Court Patent Case for Simple Yellow
Legume has Become Rallying Point for "Biopiracy"
Concerns
 The
United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
today rejected all of the patent claims for a common yellow
bean that has been a familiar staple in Latin American
diets for more than a century.
See the News Release.
- Research
Examines Seed-Aid Effectiveness
Findings Already Influencing Policies of Donor and
Recipient Governments
 Emergency
seed aid, a critical intervention during times of crisis
for farmers in the developing world, has had a range of
unexpected effects—and the easiest solution, seed
handouts, is rarely the best, according to a new paper
published today in The Journal of Development Studies.
See the News Release.
Dr.
Hawtin Continues as CIAT DG
 The
Board of Trustees of CIAT unanimously confirmed the continued
appointment of Dr. Geoff Hawtin as CIAT Director General (DG)
pending the selection of a new DG in early 2009.
See the News Release
Job Openings
- Coordinator
of the CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research
and Gender Analysis
The PRGA Program is now seeking applications for a Senior
Research Fellow/Senior Scientist position to lead and
coordinate the Program. The position will be based in
the PRGA Coordination Office at the CIAT headquarters
in Cali, Colombia.
Closing date for applications is 31 May 2008 or until
a suitable candidate is identified.
More information
- Entomologist
CIAT is seeking applications for a Postdoctoral Research
Entomologist in the area of insect plant interactions and
integrated pest management strategies. The position offers
an outstanding career opportunity for a young researcher
interested in international agricultural and tropical entomology
research.
Closing date for applications is 30 May 2008.
More information
The CIAT Virology Research Unit is seeking applications
for a qualified young Post-doctoral scientist in plant virology.
The researcher will be part of a multidisciplinary team
working on the major virus problems of common bean, cassava,
and rice.
Closing date for applications is 30 May 2008.
More information
- Coordinator
for CGIAR's Amazon Initiative Ecoregional Program
CIAT, on behalf of the Amazon
Initiative Consortium (AI) for the Conservation and Sustainable
Use of Natural Resources, is looking for a Coordinator
for a Collaborative Research Program in the Amazon.
The AI is committed to the reduction of poverty and social
vulnerability, food security, and the sustainability of
ecosystems in the region. The thematic and conceptual agenda
of the Consortium is focused on sustainable land use systems
for the prevention, reduction, and reversal of environmental
degradation and livelihood improvement of vulnerable Amazonian
populations.
Closing date for applications is 30 April 2008 or until
the position is filled.
More information in English
and Portuguese.
Ethiopia
Recognizes CIAT's Work
 The
Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) has made
an important recognition of the work carried out by CIAT in
beans in that country, on the occasion of the Ethiopian Millennium
and its 40th Anniversary.
More
information
III
Course on Hybridization and DNA Microarray Analysis
CIAT's Agrobiodiversity and Biotechnology Project will host
the III National Course on Hybridization and DNA Microarray
Analysis from 7 to 9 May 2008.
The course will be offered free to researchers, professors,
last-year undergraduate students, and postgraduate students.
More
information
New Publication
Inventory of Official Policy
Instruments for Rural Enterprise Development
 This
publication, only available in Spanish, aims to facilitate
the understanding and use of instruments pertinent to the
official policy on agriculture and livestock production by
rural development actors, especially final beneficiaries.
The document presents a framework of the national policy on
agriculture and livestock production and an organized portfolio
of policy instruments pertinent to agriculture, livestock
production, and rural development.
More
information
On-line
Promotional Brochures of
CIAT
 Three
promotional brochures of CIAT are now on-line and can prove
quite useful when attending visitors.
The first is a general brochure that provides a brief outline
of CIAT's history and its main achievements over four decades
of research. The second focuses on training activities and
the third is a guide for visitors to the Center's headquarters
in Palmira.
All three brochures are available in English and Spanish.
Download the brochures:
From the CGIAR "Story of
the Month"
Safeguarding the "Crown
Jewels" of International Agriculture
 Ten
genebanks operated by CGIAR-supported Centers were the scene
of frenetic activity in recent weeks, as staff rushed to finish
packing samples of more than 200,000 crop varieties for shipment
to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV),
a new storage facility located on a remote island near the
Arctic Circle.
Read the whole story: www.cgiar.org/monthlystory/february2008.html
Seminar
on Cassava Harvesting
(CIAT, Cali, Colombia, 26-28 March 2008)
CIAT organized a "Cassava Harvest Seminar" with
the aim that different collaborating institutions from universities,
our partner the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
(IITA),
NARs, and the private processing sector can participate and
get a hands-on experience in the entire process of identifying
high-value cassava.
More
information
News Release
Colombia Ships Seeds of
Staple Food Crops to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault for Safeguarding
Colombia is participating in one of the world's most ambitious
projects. Known as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the project
aims to preserve, safe from any catastrophe, humanity's agricultural
heritage.
See the News Release
International
Symposium
Innovations as Key to the
Green Revolution in Africa: Exploring the Scientific Facts
(Arusha, Tanzania, 17-21 September 2007)
 This
Symposium was organized by the African Network for Soil Biology
and Fertility (AfNet)
of Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility (TSBF)
institute of CIAT in collaboration with the Soil Fertility
Consortium for Southern Africa (SOFECSA).
More information
Multi-Institutional
Distance Learning Course on the Ex Situ Conservation
of Plant Genetic Resources
 This
publication, funded by the Technical Centre for Agricultural
and Rural Cooperation (CTA,
its French acronym), covers basic concepts of plant genetic
resources, germplasm acquisition, introduction, conservation,
characterization, documentation, and germplasm bank management
and aims to answer questions such as: Why conserve? What should
be conserved? For who do we conserve? and How do we conserve?
More information
CIAT
Annual Report 2006-2007
 Our
2006-2007 corporate annual report is already online. The report
covers the different projects carried out by CIAT in Latin
America, Africa, and Asia, with the collaboration of numerous
partners that share our mission of mitigating hunger and poverty
in the tropics.
Download the report:
Full
color (1288 kb).
Text
only (408 kb).
Report of a Collaborative
Association
Delivering Distance Education
on Plant Genetic Resources
 This
report describes the activities of a collaborative association
between CIAT, Bioversity
International (formerly the International Plant Genetic
Resources Institute [IPGRI]), the Universidad Nacional de
Colombia (UNC),
and the Network of Institutions Dedicated to Teaching Agricultural
and Rural Development Policies for Latin America and the Caribbean
(REDCAPA).
The association aimed to conduct a distance-education course
on the ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources.
Download the report
(702 kb).
New
Manual
Market Knowledge—The
Compass for Innovation
 This
manual, only available in Spanish, is based on the experiences
of Colombian and Nicaraguan agroentrepreneurs who worked as
innovation agents in their own agroindustries, chains, and
communities, and managed to improve their production systems,
productive units, products, marketing, and even organization.
More
information
For more news, see our CIAT
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