The community of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Agriculture (CGIAR) has mourned the loss of three giants of agricultural research for development, two of whom I have blogged about earlier in the year. For a number of years they were contemporaries, leading three of the research centers that are supported through the CGIAR.

Richard Sawyer

In March, Dr Richard Sawyer, first Director General of the International Potato Center (CIP) in Lima, Peru passed away at the age of 93. Richard was my first boss in the CGIAR when I joined CIP in January 1973. He remained Director General until 1991. Not one to suffer fools gladly, Richard set CIP on a course that seemed – to some at least – at odds with the way they thought international agricultural research centers should operate. He was eventually proved correct, and CIP expanded its mandate to include sweet potatoes and other Andean crops. His legacy in potato research lives on.

Trevor Williams

In April, Professor Trevor Williams, the first Director General of the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (that became the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, and now Bioversity International) passed away after a long respiratory illness, aged 76. Trevor had supervised my MSc thesis when I first joined the Department of Botany at the University of Birmingham in September 1970. We did some interesting work together on lentils. Here is my blog post. I also published an obituary in the scientific journal Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution.

Nyle Brady

Now we have just heard that Dr Nyle C Brady, third Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), based in Los Baños, Philippines, passed away at the end of November. He was 95. I never worked for Brady, although I met him on several occasions during the 1990s and early 2000s. However, for a decade I worked at IRRI in the building that was named after him when he retired from IRRI in 1981. There is a long-standing tradition of such naming honours at IRRI for former Directors General (and two other dignitaries who were instrumental in setting up IRRI in 1959/60).

This is what IRRI just published recently on its website (where you will find other links and videos):

Dr. Nyle C. Brady, the third director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and long-time professor and leader in soil science at Cornell University in the United States, passed away on 24 November in Colorado at age 95.

After 26 years at Cornell, Brady became IRRI’s director general in 1973. During 8 years at the helm, he pioneered new cooperative relationships between the Institute and the national agricultural research systems in Asia.

In October 1976, Dr. Brady led an IRRI group of scientists on a historic 3-week trip to China where they visited most of the institutions conducting rice research, as well as rice-growing communes where they interacted with farmers (a rare circumstance in 1976). Brady had previously provided China with seeds of IRRI-developed varieties, which jump-started the Institute’s formal scientific collaboration that facilitated the development of the country’s rice economy. The October 1976 trip marked the beginning of dramatic changes in China and of a close relationship between China and IRRI that has resulted in major achievements in rice research.

In a 2006 interview, Dr. Brady said, “My IRRI experience ranks very high. I had three careers: one at Cornell as a professor and a teacher, one at IRRI, and then one in Washington, D.C. with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID; as senior assistant administrator for science and technology, 1981-89), the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP), and The World Bank. I won’t say which one was the more critical. I will say that my experience at IRRI, not only for me but for my wife and family, was a highlight because we were involved in something that would help humanity. I felt I was working with a group of individuals, men and women, who wanted to improve the lot of people. They were not there just to do research and write papers; they were there to solve problems.”

“Nyle Brady led IRRI into a tremendous period of growth in the 1970s, through which some of its greatest achievements came to fruition,” said Robert Zeigler, IRRI’s current director general. “Even after he left IRRI to join USAID, and through his retirement, he was always looking out for IRRI’s best interest. He understood the power of what IRRI had to offer some of the world’s least advantaged people and did what he could to help us realize our full potential. IRRI and the world are better places for having had Nyle at the helm for so many productive years.”

Born in Colorado in the U.S., he earned his B.S. in chemistry from Brigham Young University in 1941 and his PhD in soil science from North Carolina State University in 1947. An emeritus professor at Cornell, he was the co-author (with Ray R. Weil) of the classic textbook, The nature and properties of soils, now in its 14th edition. “He was a giant in soil science and agriculture, and left an important legacy in many ways,” said Weil, professor of environmental science and technology at the University of Maryland.

“Brady was one of the giants of our field, and yet known for his personable approach to students and colleagues,” said Pedro Sanchez, director of the Agriculture and Food Security Center and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, whom Brady mentored.