Dr Ashok Kumar Are is a Principal Scientist & Product Placement Lead – Asia at ICRISAT International Crops Research Institute for tDr Ashok Semiarid Tropics (ICRISAT), India and plays key role in implementing data-driven breeding for increasing the rate of genetic gain and rate of varietal replacement in farmers’ fields, for all ICRISAT crops. Dr Ashok provides international consultancies to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of UN. With a PhD from the Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute and Certifications from Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and Queensland University in Product Management, Organizational Leadership and Statistical Learning, he has 22 years of research experience in the area of genetics, plant breeding, market segmentation and developing target product profiles for improved products development in various crops. During 2006-2019, as researcher and head of sorghum improvement, Dr Ashok developed innovative approaches that enhanced breeding efficiency for higher genetic gain in sorghum for various end-use food, feed, fodder and fuel.
Apart from developing energy dense sorghum and their commercialization for biofuels production, Dr Ashok was instrumental in the development of the first biofortified sorghum variety ‘Parbhani Shakti’ and worked extensively in seed systems development for increased adoption of cultivars. Dr Ashok has published 93 journal articles, 46 book chapters, 50 conference papers and co-edited 8 books. Dr Ashok has >40 international partnerships in various projects and guided 10 MS and PhD students.