David Bergvinson appointed new director general of ICRISAT

Hyderabad, June 27 (IANS) David Bergvinson will be the next director general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The governing board has appointed him as the head of ICRISAT for a five-year term, effective from 2015. He succeeds the current director general, William Dar, who has served the institute since 1999.

Bergvinson is currently with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, US, as senior program officer, crop value chains and digital design for agriculture development, said a statement from ICRISAT.

Bergvinson has a well-articulated passion for smallholder agriculture, and a strong desire to improve the lives of the hundreds of millions of impoverished small farmers and their families living in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, it added.

"Science should not be an end in itself. Science is a means to mitigate poverty, eradicate malnutrition and provide environmentally sustainable solutions to the most pressing challenges faced by the smallholder farmer. ICRISAT can achieve the impossible by forging strong partnerships with the public, private and civil society sectors," said Bergvinson.

I look forward to working closely with all the staff and partners to realize ICRISAT's vision of a prosperous, food-secure and resilient dryland tropics," he added.

Headquartered in Patancheru near Hyderabad, ICRISAT has two regional hubs and six country offices in sub-Saharan Africa.

The non-profit, non-political organisation is a member of CGIAR, a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future.