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needs – and then go ahead and find out what their real needs are. Do not go there and pretend you know
everything, because you don’t; do not assume that you have all the answers, because you don’t even have all the
questions. I know; been there, seen that.
Even the Nobel Prize Committee is convinced that human activity is contributory to global warming and can be
mitigated if we act now. Global warming is a problem, not a given; to solve a problem, look at it as an opportunity.
Gaunt from intellectual nourishment of only one kind, UP Los Baños is a giant half-asleep and half-awake. Blearyeyed,
it refuses to look at climate change as a wide-open horizon for opportunities in instruction and research and
extension – the 3 pillars it claims it is built on. There are tons of funds for research for development (R4D) inside
and outside the country; all that is needed is a brilliant R4D proposal. Why can’t UP Los Baños make one, and
another, and another? Been there, not done that.
(2) International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)
Can UP in general and UP Los Baños in particular learn from ICRISAT? A learning place.
William Dar comes from
Danumán West, a village in
Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur,
Northern Philippines. Theirs
is a farming family of 6
siblings (4 girls); he first
learned his agriculture from
his father. ‘I’ve done it all –
planting, land preparation,
harrowing, everything. So
farming or agriculture is not
abstract for me.’
I see that while the UP Los Baños paradigm derives from the bird’s
eye-view (the all-seeing eye), the ICRISAT paradigm derives from the
worm’s eye-view (the one-eyed one). ICRISAT is pro-poor – it looks at
the problems from the point of view of the poor, not the expert.
I’m not surprised. Only 7 years ago in India, ICRISAT was languishing,
its energy spent, its genius discouraged, its will wilted. Along came a
man called William Dar from the Philippines, and that made all the
difference. He brought with him instincts sharpened by confronting
adversities positively, seeking options, pursuing his dream. His dream
was to rise from poverty. He knew how it was to be poor, and wanted
out. ‘Poverty is not abstract for me. Poverty was there for us,’ he
says. So: ‘I challenged myself to be one of the most successful people
from my village.’ That’s what he is now.
William Dar comes from Danumán West, a village in Santa Maria,
Ilocos Sur, Northern Philippines. Theirs is a farming family of 6 siblings
(4 girls); he first learned his agriculture from his father. ‘I’ve done it all
– planting, land preparation, harrowing, everything. So farming or
agriculture is not abstract for me.’ Rice, onions, sweet potato, corn,
peanuts, pigeonpea. You don’t know how cold is cold until you have
shivered with your raincoat of a layer of palm leaves in the middle of the field in the middle of a heavy rain and
there’s nowhere to hide. I know: Been there, done that.
The Academe As Anti-Poor