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The Rice Man of Africa
June 28, 2007; All Africa Global Media
By Savitri Mohapatra
Opinion/Excerpt
With his gentle smile and calm demeanor, Monty Jones doesn't look like the proverbial wild-haired scientist. But there is no doubt that the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) breakthrough achieved through years of his painstaking breeding, with national and international scientists, has changed forever the way the world looks at African rice, and African science.
Going boldly exactly where other respected scientists had given up on, Dr. Jones succeeded for the first time in producing fertile offspring - NERICA - by crossing the prolific Asian rice (Oryza sativa) with the hardy African species (Oryza glaberrima), a feat that had been almost written off as a breeding impossibility.
"Dr. Monty Jones has demonstrated by his remarkable contribution that it is possible to reshape the agricultural map of our continent through the African creative genius," says Dr Papa Abdoulaye Seck, Director General of the Africa Rice Centre, where Dr. Jones made the NERICA breakthrough.
"There was often an element of luck in our research," he says, modestly referring to their success in producing callus -- a mass of undifferentiated cells that can be used to grow genetically identical copies of plants with desirable characteristics-by experimenting with coconut milk as a medium.
Since its large-scale release in the late 1990s, NERICA, its developers and partners continue to receive a stream of global accolades that has forced a rethink on Africa's will and capacity to solve its problems. This year Dr Monty Jones has been named one of the most influential people in the world by Times magazine.
Dr. Jones may not look like a stereotypical scientist, but perhaps he possesses some of the eccentricity that seems to go hand in hand with scientific greatness. At the WARDA ceremony, he confessed that he used to speak to his NERICA plants, praising them for their performance. Whatever he did, it worked.
(c) 2007 AllAfrica, All Rights Reserved
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