#224 Phillipines...Thanks Myron!

These four stamps with special postmark were just issued on Apr.14,2010 commemorating 50 years of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

IRRI is an autonomous, non-profit, agricultural research and training organization with offices in more than ten nations, established in 1960 by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations in cooperation with the Government of the Philippines.

Its research activities began in 1962 and are now estimated to have touched the lives of almost half the world’s population. The IRRI played a major role in sparking the Green revolution on the field of rice when it developed a new breed in the 1960s.

The Institute’s research headquarters includes laboratories and training facilities on a 252-hectare experimental farm on the lower campus of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, Laguna, about 60 kilometers south of the Philippine capital, Manila. In addition to rice research, IRRI is also very active in local communities providing educational scholarships; organizing income-generating training activities and arranging other community projects that will help improve living conditions in the poor communities that neighbor the Institute.

IRRI was established to help poor rice farmers in developing countries grow more rice on less land using less water, less labor, and fewer chemical inputs. By helping to greatly boost production and ease the use of farm chemicals during its first 40 years, IRRI clearly showed the importance of rice and agricultural research in helping poor nations develop. The Institute’s importance has been further reinforced by the private sector’s traditional lack of interest in rice research.

The Institute has received many prizes and awards, including the UNESCO Science Prize.