IRRI-UC Davis Connection: Dave Mackill pioneer interview
Channel: International Rice Research Institute
Date: 13/06/2011

In this Pioneer Interview excerpt, David Mackill, who departed the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI; http://irri.org) as a principal scientist in the Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biotechnology Division in February 2011, discusses the connection between IRRI and the University of California at Davis (UC Davis; http://caes.ucdavis.edu/NewsEvents/Events/college-celebration/2010-award-of-distinction-recipients )

He was the program leader for rainfed rice production at IRRI and led the development of more than 20 rice cultivars adapted to the challenging growing conditions in southern Asia.  He also oversaw  the IRRI project Stress-Tolerant Rice for Poor Farmers in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa or STRASA - http://www.icrisat.org - for which he helped secure a grant worth US$19.9 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Over the last 28 years, Dr. Mackill held critical positions for rice genetics and breeding, including 10 years as a U.S. Department of Agriculture research geneticist stationed at the University of California, Davis. 

In the last 17 years, Dr. Mackill and colleagues identified and transferred a gene conferring submergence tolerance into new high-yielding rice varieties. Monsoonal rains plague southern Asia with flooding that destroys crops. These new rice strains are being adopted on a large scale and will translate into millions of tons of new rice for developing countries. He is now the strategic rice expert within the research and development arm of Mars Incorporated.

Interview excerpt on the IRRI-UC Davis connection:

"I'm not exactly sure why the University of California at Davis (UC Davis) and IRRI have such a good relationship, but it may have something to do with both of them hiring very good rice scientists. There are quite few people who have gone in both directions from UC Davis to IRRI and back to UC Davis from IRRI and, in my case, multiple times back and forth. Rice is an important crop in California and so there are quite a few scientists on campus who are interested in rice and who get funding to work on rice. That has led to a natural partnership with IRRI. 

UC Davis is quite well known for education in plant breeding and in all aspects of agricultural science - http://caes.ucdavis.edu/ - and it's a natural place to look for opportunities for advanced studies for some of the good students here [at IRRI] as well as hiring some of the postdoctoral fellows and other people who have been trained at the university. 

These are some of the reasons why there is a good relationship with UC Davis. California is also one part of the U.S. that has a fairly mild climate so it's probably easier for people from the tropics to adjust—maybe another aspect that makes it attractive.

California's main rice-growing area is north of Davis. When I started studying there, my major professor emphasized to me that it was, at that time, the only major U.S. university where one could actually grow rice on campus. There are lots of students from Asia and Latin America attracted to Davis by the opportunity to study rice and work with scientists who had become well known in rice science there."