International Impact of the Core Priorities
Each of the four academic Core Priorities has local, national, and particularly, international impact.
The story of CALS' involvement in international agriculture and development began with a successful rice improvement program in Nanjing, China, in the 1920s. CALS faculty members played a crucial role in rebuilding the agricultural campus of the University of the Phillipnes after it was destroyed in World War II, and helped foster the Green Revolution in Asia in the 1960s and '70s.
Three alumni and two faculty memebers from CALS have been awarded the World Food Prize, the foremost international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world.
Today this great legacy extends to every area of the developing world through research, teaching, and outreach in all four areas of academic priority in CALS. With such projects as improving crop yields in Kenya, restoring orchards and forests in Afghanistan, discovering the secrets of Amazonian soil, and opening Indian markets with Bt eggplant to the world, CALS faculty and students are on a mission to develop new knowledge and share resources wherever they will have the greatest long-term impact, both for developing and more advanced societies.
Leading the Global Fight for Food Security ▼
The world's wheat stocks are at a 30-year low, and prices five times their level five years ago. Global food security is at further risk because wheat is being threatened by the onset of a virulent new form of wheat stem rust known as Ug99 that causes stalks of wheat to shrivel and bear no seed.
“Scientists estimate that 90 percent of all wheat varieties planted around the globe could be susceptible to Ug99,” says Ronnie Coffman, professor of plant breeding and director of International Programs at CALS. “Farmers need access to wheat varieties that can resist the new type of wheat stem rust, especially in developing nations where reliance on wheat is high and budgets for fungicides almost nonexistent.”
In 2008, Cornell was awarded a $26.8 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to launch a broad-based global partnership to combat this deadly wheat disease. Directed by Coffman, the Gates Foundation-funded partnership, the new Durable Wheat Rust Resitance in Wheat project, will bring together 15 institutions to focus on developing improved rust-resistant wheat varieties and protecting resource-poor farmers and consumers from catastrophic crop loss.
Coffman i sbeing aided by Rick Ward, previously a wheat breeder with Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) and Michigan State University, who is the project coordinator. Among their CALS' collaborators is Marke Sorrells, internationally renowned wheat breeder, who directs the Small Grains Breeding and Genetics Research Project at Cornell.
Linking Plant Agriculture and Human Well-Being ▼
Plant geneticist Steve Kresovich is fairly single-minded about his purpose: "I want to understand molecular and population genetics as they relate to effective conservations and use of crops."
In addition to overseeing an active research program dedicated to the conservation and improvement of grasses like grain sorghum and pearl millet, vitally important staples in the diets of sub-Saharan Africans, he directs Cornell’s Institute for Genomic Diversity, heads up the university’s New Life Sciences Initiative, and serves as Cornell’s vice provost for life sciences.
For Kresovich, the effective conservation and use of crop diversity “is about knowing what’s in collections, whether it’s in a plant gene bank like the repository at the Geneva experiment station or in breeders’ programs around the world. And then it’s about knowing what’s in nature and seeing how well we can discover new traits,” he says. Kresovich believes that preserving native landraces from their centers of origin for future study and use is essential. “At present, the biggest problems are finding and collecting germplasm,” he says.
Plant exploration in sub-Saharan Africa, which is the center of origin for grain sorghum and pearl millet, is a challenging business. The climate is severe, the politics are unstable, and there are real dangers like coming into areas filled with land mines. Kresovich is committed to making better links between plant agriculture and human well-being. For grain sorghum and pearl millet, he is looking for traits that improve yield, nutritional quality, disease resistance, and drought resistance.
In addition to Mali, Nigeria, and Ghana, where he is working now, he would like to foster closer collaborations with plant breeders in Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
Kiran Goldman Designs Solar Houses for Tibetans ▼
Deforestation is a serious problem in China's Yunnan Province, where heating, cooking and building are all done with wood. And the contant exposure to wood smoke dmages the health of the villagers in this remote mountainous region.
Biological and environmental sciences major Kiran Goldman tackled both problems at once in her senior thesis project: developing recommendations for designing traditional Tibetan houses that would use passive solar energy.
“The use of passive solar heating and cooking requires architectural changes that are difficult in traditional Tibetan communities, owing to critical cultural and religious controls over house design and construction,” explains her adviser, Professor of Natural Resources James Lassoie, who conducts ongoing studies in the region in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy. “Many alternative energy projects around the world have failed because of their preoccupation with technical details over social constraints.”
The working conditions are harsh in Yunnan Province, where the geography ranges from subtropical to alpine. And English is useless among the 25 different ethnic minority groups. But Goldman—who had studied Mandarin Chinese since high school—was up to the challenge.
Goldman sought the collaboration of a Yunnan-based conservation organization and listened carefully to the needs, beliefs, and constraints of the of the villagers. Her thesis contributed meaningfully to the Nature Conservancy's major study of energy conservation throughout northwest Yunnan. "By respectfully engaging with teh people she hoped to influence," says Lassoie, "she succeeded beyond all expectations."
Pinstrup-Andersen Fights Poverty and Hunger ▼
Poverty, hunger, and hopelessness in developing nations are at the root of international instability and terrorism, according to Professor Per Pinstrup-Andersen, who says you cannot expect international stability when the earnings of the richest 1 percent of the world's population equal the earnings of the bottom 57 percent. About 1.2 billion people live on less than one dollar a day, and five to six million preschool children die each year from hunger and malnutrition and poverty.
“This kind of income distribution breeds anger,” Pinstrup-Andersen says, “which means that fanatics with money can recruit people and can get sympathy and support from those who are watching their kids die of starvation.”
Pinstrup-Andersen, with joint appointments in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the Department of Applied Economics and Management, has dedicated his career to eradicating hunger and reducing malnutrition worldwide. He was awarded the World Food Prize in 2001 for his research that enabled several governments to reform their food subsidy programs and other policies to better feed their poor.
Pinstrup-Andersen teaches the course Globalization, Food Security, and Nutrition. His goal is to teach students to go out into the world and engage in the activities that will eradicate hunger. “I want them to leave Cornell with the best possible analytical minds, so they won’t fall prey to propaganda and simple-minded thinking,” he says.
Helping Rice Farmers Worldwide ▼
Since the dawn of civilization, rice has provided nourishment to more people than any other crop. That's why rice research conducted in CALS is of critical importance to millions of people worldwide.
Ray Wu (1928–2008), the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics who was widely recognized as one of the fathers of rice genetic engineering, introduced genes of potential benefit into rice by transformation, generating fertile crops that are tolerant to the three most significant non-biological stresses on crops—drought, salt, and low temperatures. Wu used a custom-designed promoter sequence added to the gene or fused genes to enable precise control over gene expression. As an example, transgenic rice plants that harbored a fused gene to over-produce trehalose, a naturally occurring sugar, became more tolerant to drought or low temperatures. Wu introduced the genes for trehalose synthesis into pusa, an aromatic variety that is widely grown in India and very popular internationally.
Susan McCouch, a professor in the department of plant breeding and genetics, uses “smart breeding” rather than transgenic techniques to make crosses and selections to improve the performance of rice crops grown throughout the world. McCouch, who developed the first molecular linkage map of the rice genome as a Cornell doctoral student, is working to integrate useful genes from wild species of rice and traditional farmer varieties. Using modern genomic approaches that enable her to map where genes of importance can be found, she is collaborating with breeders worldwide to develop rice varieties with improved yield, good grain quality, early maturity, and durable resistance to pests.
