Rice Biofortification: Lessons for Global Science and Development - Chapter 4 (Accepted Manuscript

This chapter explores the processes by which these dynamics intensified once these initiatives were absorbed under the umbrella of HarvestPlus, one of the programmes 1 selected by the CGIAR in the early 2000s to pilot a new approach to the conduct and funding of research, called the ‘Challenge Program’. [...] In October of that year, the programme name was changed from the Biofortification Challenge Program to ‘HarvestPlus’, a name considered ‘more appealing to the general public’.34 In a presentation to the CGIAR AGM, the name change was explained as follows: [dq]We took the decision to change the name of the Biofortification Challenge Program to HarvestPlus as a way to reach out more effectively to t. [...] These dynamics are intensified in the Philippine context, given the late entry of PhilRice into the community of NARS in the region, in the context of accumulated disappointments and misunderstandings over the expected contribution of IRRI to Philippine agriculture (Perlas and Vellvé, 1997). [...] fill the gaps in later’.94 At the same time, the extension of the HarvestPlus network to the China programme further consolidated the black-boxing of results that, closer to the core, were still in doubt. [...] In particular, the omnipresence of the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board as the 55 default governing structure points to the vulnerability of an overextended network to the possibility of fragmentation and capture.