The Gregor Mendel Foundation, established in 2002, proposes to focus on the importance and innovative potential of plant breeding. The founders are personalities and families with dedication to plant breeding for generations. The “Gregor Mendel Innovation Prize” is awarded to individuals who rendered outstanding services to innovation in plant breeding.
Delighted to hear that this year’s prize will be awarded to Dr Mahmoud Solh, Director General of ICARDA, on behalf of the institute’s genebank team:
…who were able to maintain the gene bank in Syria despite the challenging conditions of civil war and to send duplicates of the genetic material to other gene banks, e.g. in Spitzbergen. This ICARDA collection is a unique resource for scientists around the world in their search for genes suitable for national and international breeding programmes in order to develop drought tolerant and disease and pest resistant varieties which can be cultivated even under changing climate conditions.
The ceremony will take place on 19 March in Berlin. Richly deserved, I’m sure we all agree. It was only a couple of months ago that I had this to say:
…it was unbelievable to me that, despite everything, ICARDA staff in Aleppo are still somehow managing to keep the genebank going. That, perhaps, is the most remarkable of the achievements of the amazing, yet largely unsung, group of people who run genebanks, international and otherwise — not just in Aleppo but also in Lima, Cali, Texcoco, Leuven, Cotonou, Ibadan, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Hyderabad, Los Banos, Suva, Shanhua, Arusha, Entebbe, Muguga… — and some of whose representatives met in the shadow of Mt Meru earlier this month. We owe them all so much, and I don’t think they hear that enough.
So glad to be proved wrong.
