A New Paradigm For Research

Bill Gates is acting strange. Microsoft is no stranger to computer science research and development (R&D) – but agriculture R&D?

Today, Bill Gates is into crop research, specifically the Tropical Legumes II Project, in faraway Sub-Saharan Africa, no relation to Microsoft Windows or Office 2007. He might have been talking to officials of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in Patancheru, India, perhaps even officials of the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) based in Cali, Colombia; International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) based in Ibadan, Nigeria. The three are implementing Legumes II.

That’s a big jump for Bill Gates from software to soybean, from programming to pigeonpea, from computer code to chickpea, from Visual Basic to beans, from client security to cowpea, from computer games to groundnuts. From design to DNA, the one largely dictated by the mind, the other largely dictated by nature.

Actually, Microsoft is no stranger to the unknown. Microsoft is Bill Gates, right? Along with Paul Allen, in 1968 – years before Apple Computer’s Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak came out with the world’s first truly personal computer, the Apple I on April Fool’s Day in 1975 – already Gates was exploring the undiscovered world of personal computing using the big computers of Computer Center Corporation in Seattle. Gates, pioneer in cyberspace.

How did Gates jump from conceptual products to natural produce? He is married and they have the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aimed at ‘bringing innovations to health and learning to the global community.’ With active support from Rob Horsch and David Bergvinson, the Gates Foundation is funding the US $20 million Legumes II project of ICRISAT, CIAT and IITA. This was launched on September 24 at Arusha, Tanzania. The Gates Foundation had earlier supported Legumes I.

Certainly, crop researchers can learn from Microsoft’s corporate experience:

Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals are to enhance the user experience (with) computing devices, reduce the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies. Microsoft Research also collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to broadly advance the field of computer science.

Borrowing from that, the tropical legumes project is basic and applied research on food legumes, its goals being to enhance the farmer’s experience with growing beans, soybean, chickpea, pigeonpea, cowpea, groundnut; to reduce the cost of cultivating and sustaining legume production; to invent novel production technologies. Legumes II is also about institutional collaboration to broadly advance the field of semi-arid tropical agriculture.

In launching Legumes II at the New Arusha Hotel, Director General William Dar of ICRISAT (photo, the man in the middle) reminded those delegates from Sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria) and from South Asia (India and Myanmar) about the urgent need to improve the livelihoods of people living below the poverty line. Where technologies are already available, research institutes and development agencies have to make resolute efforts to raise the awareness of farmers of such technologies, to spark their interest in such matters, to make them desirous to adopt such innovations, to remove any obstacles to their acceptance and use. ‘In short,’ he said, ‘we have an institution to grow, a mission to fulfill, and impacts to achieve.’ In each of the Sub-Saharan African and South Asian countries that are part of Legumes II, it is necessary that local institutions be strengthened to support the new tools and techniques; that, together, research centers and development agencies be aware that they have influences to exert and a mission to accomplish.

In that same occasion, the Director General of ICRISAT made clear to the Legumes II launching delegates, that it was ‘necessary to close the gap between intention and action’ – that research proceed to extension. This is the research-for-development paradigm. R4D. Microsoft is at home with the process, if not the acronym. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. In computer science, software must lend itself to customization, to tinkering by a tutor to fit his teaching style, by a student to fit his learning style. In crop science, Dar said decisions ought to be made ‘taking into account natural resource fragility, community vulnerability, risk profiles, asset resilience, market options’ and other things. I interpret that to mean farmers must consider the:

(a) long-range effects of crop choices along with the changing fertilities of fields,
(b) cropping patterns and systems in the village and beyond,
(c) possibilities of infestation (by insects) or infection (by disease microorganisms),
(d) access to capital, and
(e) target buyers.

Everything must be considered. Over the years, a farmer’s practice may have in fact diminished the fertility of his field. Farmers may have denied their soils their natural source of nutrients by not incorporating the crop refuse and weeds into the soil by one means or another. The villagers may have planted the same crops for generations that the bugs and the bacteria have learned to feast on them. Some farmers may have borrowed capital they could not afford to repay. Some crop growers may have ignored or failed to explore the markets and have gone on to over-saturate one or two, resulting in soft returns for their hard labors.

Farming is sweet sorrow, and it is up to the experts to help the farmer make his cultivation of the soil not a punishment but a reward, not simply a minor advantage but a great benefit.

It has long been known that some pests and disease-causing organisms have become tolerant to insecticides, fungicides and such other pesticides. In other words, from generation to generation, which could be just a few weeks or months, the enemies of crops have learned to defend themselves even as they attack. While the bugs and bacteria innovate on how to attack the farmer’s crop, the farmer’s advocates – us – must innovate on how to counter-attack. So, research for development must go on. R4D.

Also published by the American Chronicle in a slightly different version.
Copyright 2007 October 3 by Frank A Hilario

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