allAfrica.com: Sierra Leone: Introducing Rare Gems (Page 1 of 2)

Dr Monty Jones is one of the 100 most influential personalities in the world. In this maiden edition of 'Introducing the Rare Gems of Sierra Leone' series, we have decided to bring you Dr Monty Jones. He is one of only five Africans on the 2007 list of 100 influential people in the world.

Because some people might be wondering who the rare gems of Sierra Leone are and where are they. We have decided to launch a thorough search to get at the real rare gems, both from within the country and in the Diaspora.

Why the search for rare gems RARE GEMS OF SIERRA LEONE is convinced that the people of Sierra Leone require the power of collective leadership driven by credible role models who can rekindle the flame of love, faith and hope to inspire our people to confront their present seeming limitations; We are desirous of organizing young outstanding Sierra Leoneans who are making a difference all over the world to focus on investing their enormous influence and resources to advance the cause of Sierra Leone nationally and internationally.

Time Magazine, one of the world's leading weekly magazines has put together a panel, which chooses the most influential people in the world every year. Dr Jones was one of only five Africans on last year's list of 100 names. The others are President Omar al Bashir of Sudan, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Nigerian Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola, and Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour. On the list from other parts of the world were German Chancellor Agela Merkel, the UK's Queen Elizabeth, Pope Benedict XVI, and American chat show host Oprah Winfrey.

Dr Monty Jones, a plant breeder by profession was the key scientist involved in developing a new type of rice now dubbed New Rice for Africa (NERICA). After his graduation from Njala University College in the early seventies, Monty worked at the Rokupr Rice Research Station where he faced the reality of the native African Rice (O. glaberrima) being adapted to local conditions with high tolerance to low soil fertility, diseases, pests and the ability to compete with weeds, but with low yields compared to the Asian rice (O. sativa).

On the other hand, the Asian rice, though higher yielding, lacks the robustness of its African counterpart to resist the pests, diseases and low soil fertility conditions prevalent in the rice growing environments of the sub-Saharan region.

To further prepare him for such challenge, Monty enrolled at Birmingham University in the United Kingdom, where he obtained a masters degree in 1979 and a doctorate in plant biology in 1983. He then returned to Sierra Leone and continued working for the Mangrove Swamp Rice Project under the West Africa Rice development Agency.

In 1988, Dr Monty Jones joined the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Cameroon where he worked as a breeder until he moved over to a sister International Agricultural Research Institution of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) in 1991.

As Head of the Upland Rice Breeding Programme at the West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) in the Ivory Coast, Dr Jones had the opportunity to fulfil his life-long dream to improve the productivity of rice under the harsh conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr Jones effectively led his research team to successfully combine the desirable characteristics of both the Asian and African rices to produce distinctly different rice types possessing the high yielding characteristics of the Asian rice and the toughness of the African rice to the harsh growing environments in sub Saharan Africa.

Combining the two species had been attempted before, but with no success. Crossing different species is notoriously difficult because of the high probability of sterility in the offsprings. In his quest to combine the two different rice species, Dr Jones ventured in a field where few scientists had gone before and succeeded in crossing the two species to produce offsprings that overcome the genetic barrier.

Eventually the team produced new rice varieties with the ability to resist weeds, survive droughts, and thrive on poor soils with reasonable yields under limited external inputs characteristic of our resource poor farmers. In addition, many of the NERICA varieties mature much earlier (about 3 months) than the traditional varieties requiring from 5 - 6 months to mature.

This breakthrough has provided the opportunity for African rice farmers to obtain yields of 4 - 6 tons per hectare (compared to yields of 1 - 3 t/ha produced by existing varieties) potentially benefiting 20 million rice farmers and 250 million consumers in Africa.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations declared 2004 the International Year of Rice, and to honour the FAO's celebration of the crop, the world food prize was given to two rice scientists who, working independently, made significant breakthroughs that bettered the lives of countless human beings throughout the world. Dr Monty Jones, now dubbed the Rice Man of Africa was the deserved co-laureate of the 2004 World Food Prize, the first ever won by an African in recognition of his breakthrough achievements in creating the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) with immense potential for food security and poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. Professor Yuan Longpin of China was the other scientist for his breakthrough achievement in developing the genetic materials and technologies essential for breeding high-yielding hybrid rice varieties. The World Food Prize, known as the Nobel prize for Food and Agriculture honours outstanding individuals who have made vital contribution to improving the quality, quantity or availability of food throughout the world.

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