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11.
AL GORE OF SCIENCE.
BEING ABOUT WILLIAM DAR &
‘SCIENCE WITH A HUMAN FACE’
In the developing world, agriculture is the most promising
site of growth – since the Green Revolution, it has always
been full of promises, promises, promises. We need leaders
in science – as well as politics – who do not merely promise
but deliver. And we do have an outstanding one, in the field
of international agriculture: William Dar, Director General of the
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT). ICRISAT is based in Andhra Pradesh, India; Dar is from the Philippines; the match is
made in heaven. Led by Dar, Team ICRISAT, the name they call themselves, have given the
world an outstanding crop for mitigating global warming: sweet sorghum, a variety of
Sorghum bicolor.
To simplify, agriculture equals crops. Agriculture is the redeemer from heaven – but only if the crops by themselves
multiply the number of people who reap their own golden harvests from their own sweat in the offices and in the fields.
Sweet sorghum is an outstanding example of such a crop, as it is a multiplier crop like no other – it multiplies
the opportunities:
(1) It multiplies the planted fields. In science, they have what they call multi-location testing; in sorgo, we have
what I call a multi-location crop that doesn’t need much more testing – sorghum grows well anywhere, including
temperate countries (2006 March, Oklahoma State University, osu.okstate.edu).