Blog In Memory of Dr. John William Miles: A Legacy of Tropical Forage Breeding Innovation
With deep respect and profound sadness, we bid farewell to Dr. John William Miles, a brilliant scientist who dedicated 37 years to improving tropical forages at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. His absence leaves a void in our hearts and the field of tropical forage innovation.
Dr. Miles, a native of California, USA, moved to Colombia in 1973. He started at Peace Corps in Bogotá, where he learned Spanish, which was part of the program. Then, he traveled to Huila and began his journey in agriculture at ICA and later flourished at CIAT, where his unwavering passion and scientific rigor led to the development of Urochloa (Brachiaria) grass varieties. His work significantly enhanced meat and milk production and brought about substantial economic benefits for Latin American farmers, leaving an indelible mark on the scientific community.
The world has lost a leading light in tropical forage breeding. Dr. Miles is a champion of fit-for-purpose forage breeding. Dr. Miles worked initially on forage legumes - Stylosanthes - but then focused mainly on Urochloa and later on Megathyrsus (Panicum) grasses. Dr. Miles overcame challenges such as genetic and reproductive incompatibilities in breeding apomictic grasses. His forage improvement efforts were interdisciplinary, and he developed productive, stress-tolerant, and nutritionally superior grass varieties such as Mulato, Mulato II, Cayman, and Cobra for optimizing livestock feeding and increasing the land's carrying capacity. He was deeply committed to supporting farmers with improved grass cultivars.
The contribution of Dr. Miles to forage germplasm development cannot be overstated. More than twenty years ago, Dr. Miles, working with both public and private sector partners, contributed to the release of the first commercial Urochloa hybrid, Mulato. This was not only a scientific breakthrough but also had a massive impact on improving meat and milk production.
Thanks to his great efforts, Urochloa hybrids from his breeding program are now sown on more than 1.5 million hectares, and many more hectares have been reached through vegetative propagation of different grass cultivars. This has impacted the income and well-being of several 100,000 people in tropical Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and his grass cultivars are spreading into the southern United States and Europe.
In addition to these outstanding scientific achievements, we will miss Dr. Miles as a highly respected colleague. And as a person of great empathy and willingness to help those in need. He was not very interested in social events but always enjoyed interacting with people regardless of hierarchy and status.
As a boss and mentor, he was demanding and meticulous, always willing to share his knowledge. His students and colleagues remember him as a detailed planner and a great companion on all projects.
There will always be much more to say about Dr. Miles, but his modesty gets in the way.
"This is a simple homage to the great work that he carried out during all these years of research at CIAT; he will always be remembered for his high scientific rigor, commitment to achieving impact at scale, and phobia of bureaucracy," affirmed Joe Tohme, friend, and colleague.
