Washington: Scientists from seven developing countries, including Geetha Rani of India, have won a fellowship of the US-based International Fund for Agricultural Research (IFAR), a foundation dedicated to fostering scientific excellence in agriculture.

A total of 10 scientists from India, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Costa Rica, China, Ethiopia and Kenya have been selected by IFAR.

These scientists will spend up to three months working with world-class scientists at IFAR's consultative group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)'s centres.

The fellowship winners developed innovative results-oriented proposals together with their proposed host research centres, IPGRI, World Agroforestry Centre/ICRAF, IITA ILRI and the Africa Rice Centre/WARDA.

The proposals, which were assessed by a team of international experts, cover areas such as the development of rice lines for drought prone rice production systems, modelling gene flow to assess risk to biodiversity in traditional cropping systems.

The evaluation committee included experts from India, Brazil, Cameroon and New Zealand.