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you have; ergo, to wysiwyg is to optimize. So: ICRISAT has come up with sweet sorghum hybrids that are ‘photoperiod
insensitive’ – meaning, they can be planted at different months so that there can be harvests of the crop all
months of the year, ensuring continuous supply of raw materials, which is necessary for successful manufacturing
and marketing. As far as I know, we don’t have corn or sugarcane hybrids that grow well whatever the month or
season. So: The planting of ICRISAT’s sorghum hybrids for ethanol production is a global strategy to implement a
global mission / global revolution towards achieving a global vision.
We can say then that ‘global
warming’ is merely scenery, so
we don’t have to present it to
the citizens of Our Town. If we
believe that, we lack five square
feet of understanding and the
passion to feel what life means
to us, all of us together.
A global outlook – An outlook is a point of view, an attitude
(American Heritage Dictionary 2000). By dictionary, the word
global has many shades of meaning: international, worldwide,
multinational, great, powerful (American Heritage); universal,
comprehensive, total, inclusive, overall, large-scale (Microsoft
Encarta Dictionary 2005). I will now summarize all those and
thereby add my own definition in one word: shared. Within ICRISAT
itself, the work ethic is shared – the work force call themselves
Team ICRISAT. William Dar, Team Captain, leads and guides the ICRISAT
staff to work together for the good of all, literally and figuratively.
This is how ICRISAT has been able to produce hybrids of sweet
sorghum as well as sell the species as a global crop for ethanol
production to Rusni Distilleries Ltd so that now Rusni is producing
commercial ethanol from sweet sorghum stalks (IPR, 11 Oct 2006,
seedquest.com). So: Teamwork is ICRISAT’s internal global outlook
in nurturing sweet sorghum as a global crop using a global strategy to implement a global mission to achieve a
global vision.
A global reach and impact - Today Africa, tomorrow the world. Already, ICRISAT has regional centers and research
stations in Africa: Kenya, Niger, Mali, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique. ICRISAT is now reaching out to Asian and
American countries with its sweet sorghum initiative. Sweet sorghum is actually already grown in many countries:
the United States, Australia, Africa (where it is known as durra), India (jowar), Ethiopia (bachanta). On her part,
directly inspired by the Rusni sweet sorghum distillery as proof of concept, led by President Gloria Macapagal-
Arroyo, the Philippines has embarked on her own program of producing ethanol from the crop despite the fact that
sweet sorghum is exotic to the islands (INF, 10 Sept 2006, nordis.net). So: ICRISAT is reaching out globally in
nurturing sweet sorghum as a global crop using a global strategy to implement a global mission to achieve a
global vision.
A global mode of operation – My readings of the many reports of ICRISAT and on ICRISAT have given me another
idea. The global mode of operation that this international research institute has adopted for its successful sweet
sorghum initiative may be referred to as the sci-fi mode. That’s an acronym for science, citizen, financing,
management, good offices, distribution of benefits, ecology. The assumptions here are that there is (a) a coalition
of the willing: science, citizen, financing, management, good offices, and (b) a qualification of benefits to man and
the ecology. It is science that brings the crop to the attention of the citizen farmer who cultivates the soil and the
An Inconvenient Truth