Academician Dr C. Devendra FASc

Elected as Fellow in 2006 under the Biological, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Academician Dr C. Devendra FASc was exemplary in animal science, locally and internationally. He was an international tropical animal production specialist with experience spanning over thirty years in research and development initiatives. His specialisation was in animal nutrition and animal production systems, central to integrated natural resource management and agricultural systems. He obtained a Bachelor of Agriculture Science degree in New Zealand, a Master of Agriculture Science in Malaysia, and his PhD from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

From 1971 until 1984, he served at the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute. He worked on fundamental and applied animal nutrition projects with goats and sheep and attained the rank of Principal Research Officer. In Singapore, from 1985 to 1992, he worked with the International Development Research Centre as Programme Officer in Animal Production Systems. During this time, he was involved with 80 projects in animal production systems in 13 Asian countries, targeted at encouraging efficient use of natural resources and the development of environmentally sustainable agriculture. 

From 1993 to 1994, he worked as an independent consultant, undertaking work for the International Livestock Research Institute. Assignments took him around the world, from Latin America to North Africa. In 1995 as a Senior Associate with the Institute of Livestock Research, he managed projects in Asia. In 1999 he was appointed as a Team Leader for the Institute’s Crop-Animal Systems Research Network project involving five Asia countries, including China. 

This work, funded through the Asian Development Bank, aimed to increase the productivity of crop-livestock systems. Dr Devendra has contributed to the establishment, management, monitoring, and evaluation of crop and animal production projects and the use of natural feed resources in almost 20 different countries.

He also served at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad, MARDI in Malaysia, and the Animal Production Systems Asia programme with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). He was a member of the Strategic Planning Task Force of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, and subsequently was appointed as a Senior Associate. He was a consultant to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Commonwealth Secretariat and several governments.

He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Delaware, USA, and has also been an external examiner to the Universities of Queensland, Australia, and Uppsala, Sweden, and the University of Life Sciences in Ås, Norway. 

Academician Dr C. Devendra FASc passed away on 17 June 2021. He will be remembered as a reputed icon in Animal Science.