Public Science Center. Climate-change ICRISAT & public-private partners
Frank A. Hilario
November 21, 2009
Years before the awareness-raising Nobel Prize for Peace joint win of the IPCC and Al Gore, ICRISAT was the first of the 15 centers under the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, CGIAR to initiate partnerships with the public and private sectors to come up with public goods for the poor farmers of the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. This happened under the insightful leadership of now much-honored Director General William Dar, who is from the Philippines.
And by climate-change institution I mean a center that pushes the cutting-edge frontier of science even further by coming out with climate-sensitive, high-yielding new or improved varieties of such crops as chickpea, peanut, pearl millet, pigeon pea, sorghum - and partnering with the public and private sectors (photo, William Dar at right) in carrying out collaborative science for the people, especially those of the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. To paraphrase ICRISAT itself, this is working out a common science with a human face. In the face of climate change.
Ever innovative, ICRISAT announced on 17 November 2009 (ICRISAT Happenings #1389) that it is expanding the facilities of its highly successful Agri-Science Park, ASP and is constructing a complex of new pilot plants, new laboratories and new training facilities. The ASP was established 6 years ago, in December 2003, as the agro-biotech park of the Genome Valley Initiative of the Government of Andhra Pradesh.
The ICRISAT Director said during the cornerstone-laying that day that the new complex will become a core division of ICRISAT and will be given a new name. Nobody's asking for my opinion, but I'm giving it anyway: I suggest the name "Public Science Center" that would take on the friendly acronym PSci (pronounced p-sigh). (This is my brand of name-calling, taking after my father Lakay Disiong, who was nicknamed himself Padi, priest in Ilocano, as he was fond of "christening" or nicknaming people.)
In any case, the name I have in mind possesses the 4 Cs of Communication, being clear, concise, coherent, comprehensive and, more than that, it is convenient. Whatever, to explain the ICRISAT concept of the ASP, by way of my invented name, I am very glad to point out to you that the name itself, those 3 words "Public Science Center" as a whole describes quite succinctly what it is all about: that it is open to the public for collaborative work, that science is the way around here, that it is a dedicated place.
Public - The facilities are offered for collaboration to the public, and the products and services that are the expected outputs are for the good of the public. The word also suggests partnership and collaboration: "open to the public," open to all interested groups.
Science - This is the primary instrument for generation of those public goods. "Science" is taken to refer to both knowledge and tool, to software and hardware, to process and technology.
Center - This suggests the idea of a one-stop shop, a place for everything.
As I was saying before I interrupted myself, the ASP is the means by which ICRISAT easifies (my coinage) with its partners the process from generating a product (or service) up to commercializing it, including fashioning out the new or improved technology that is necessary to come up with the product. Partnerships make up another intelligent approach to respond to climate change, in that it reduces energies needed compared to going solo.
The ASP begins the work not only with ICRISAT's own innovations (such as a new hybrid crop) but also innovations from its partners in science. Incubation of innovation.
Convinced of the worthiness of the concept, the Government of India in general and the Andhra Pradesh Government in particular have been collaborating with ICRISAT and providing millions of dollars in the form of grants to ICRISAT.
As of April 2009, the ASP has the following components (icrisat.org):
Ag-Biotech Innovation Center (AIC) - This enables companies to set up their own R&D facilities within the ASP and operate in collaboration with ICRISAT. The joint work is through a Collaborative Research Agreement with ICRISAT. 8 major agri-biotech companies have established their R&D setups here.
Agri-Business Incubator (ABI) - This helps entrepreneurs proceed from business conceptualization to implementation, with support ranging from business mentorship, technical support, business consultancy, and facilitation services.
The ABI has been the most successful component of the ASP, as it has helped incubate at least 20 technologies and enterprises.
Worth special mention as a great success of the ABI is that ICRISAT, Rusni Distilleries and sweet sorghum farmers have established the world's first commercial distillery using sweet sorghum as a feedstock in the village of Mohammed Shapur in Andhra Pradesh. Through a Rusni-patented technology, the distillery can produce 40 kL of ethanol a day, demonstrating to the world that ethanol from sweet sorghum is a sustainable proposition: technically feasible, economically viable, socially acceptable, and environment friendly. It is a decentralized model, starting with the farmers (stalk producers), on to farmer groups and micro-entrepreneurs (juice extractors) to distilleries (ethanol processors). The model includes links with credit and input agencies. The links I think are why it's called a value chain.
And I know about incubation. When I was in high school more than 50 years ago, we had a small poultry setup, about 100 birds of Rhode Island Red and White Leghorns that we had to raise with commercial feeds. After the first batch, we raised our own flock by incubating our own eggs, so I learned from my brother-in-law Manong Romulo Llamas, if I remember right, how to use the incubator: how to candle eggs, how often to turn over the eggs, and how to tell the fertile from the infertile (I can tell using flashlight). Imagine how delightful it is to watch an egg crack itself from the inside and then out comes a wet, tiny, helpless being. With the warmth of a brooder, from the incubator the chick begins to learn about the outside world. An egg is hatched; an egg becomes a life. An incubator assists in the miracle of life.
ICRISAT´s metaphor of incubation is apt because in ABI, you bring your own eggs and they will help you hatch them in the ASP. From personal experience, I know that not all eggs are fertile, and the infertile must be taken out of the incubator. I can imagine that in the case of the ABI, some ideas are taken out – that is, found either not technically feasible, not economically viable, not socially acceptable, or not environmentally friendly. In other instances, instead of throwing out concepts of a new product, they improve on it: embellish it, modify it, add to it or subtract from it and so on. That is to say, the ABI is more than an incubator; it is a creative force in itself.
So I´m not surprised that the Government of India honored the ABI with the Best Technology Incubator Award in 2005. Last year, ABI received from the Asian Association of Business Incubation the AABI Award. This year, the ASP received the Maryland India Business Roundtable (MIBRT) Award on 19 November, "for outstanding service in promoting science and technology research." It happens to the best.
Hybrid Parents Seed Research Consortium (HPSRC) - The concept is to improve access by poor farmers of much better seeds through public-private partnerships with ICRISAT. Currently, there are 40 seed companies that are members of the consortium. The improved crops available are sorghum, pearl millet and pigeon pea. Today, 80% of hybrid millet and sorghum varieties available in the market have ICRISAT parental lines.
Bioproducts Research Consortium (BPRC) - The consortium is dedicated to the mass production of biological pesticides to supplement or replace chemical pesticides. There are currently 11 private companies supporting research for more environment-friendly methods of pest control. You cannot be climate-friendly if you´re not environment-friendly. The magnitude of the target is staggering, in that each year worldwide 3 billion kilos of chemical pesticides are applied at the cost of US $40 billion plus.
NutriPlus Knowledge Center (NutriPlus) - This is a platform of innovation in food processing, with focus on cereals, legumes, fruits, vegetables, as well as medicinal and aromatic plants. The expected outputs are fortified foods, flavors and fragrances, functional foods, functional beverages, food additives and colors, bio-actives and enzymes, post-harvest management and bio-products. Phase I implementation is in program through the UNIDO South-South Cooperation Office. "Through the NutriPlus Knowledge Center," Dar says, 'we want to strengthen enterprise in the food processing industry, which will in turn link with the poor farmers of the drylands to improve their livelihoods." The collaboration is inside and outside India; in January 2008, ICRISAT and the Crop and Food Research, one of the Crown Research institutes of New Zealand, signed a memorandum of understanding, MoU to help develop NutriPlus. Nandan Biomatrix is also involved in NutriPlus.
SAT Eco-Venture (ICRISAT campus) - ICRISAT has entered into an MoU with the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Department, along with the World Wide Fund, to develop the whole area as an agricultural as well as an environmental education system. (The WWF is already a partner in the Ag-Biotech Innovation Center - in fact, ICRISAT and the WWF have come up with the Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (see my "Sweet Revolution, 2009!" americanchronicle.com.) The tranquil countryside landscape of the campus comprising lakes, natural habitats, forest and cultural heritage buildings are being preserved to form an eco-tourism park. There is going to be a golf course to attract membership.
Still as part of the SAT Eco-Venture, with the Suri Sehgal Foundation, ICRISAT has just inaugurated a 16-ha, newly excavated lake at the black saline part of the site. Today, the campus serves as a demonstration and training platform for visiting academics, farmers and visitors, as well as a model for watershed management. With public-private partnerships, ICRISAT expects to replicate this model in other semi-arid tropic areas.
That is not to forget to mention that all components of the ASP are now functioning as Strategic Business Units, meaning the ASP is now self-sustaining: AIC, ABI, HPRC, BRC, NutriPlus, and SAT Eco-Venture. The ASP has proven its value as an enterprise in itself. The proof of concept is the living proof.
And the ASP has the following facilities: a Food Safety Laboratory, Genetic Transformation and Applied Genomics Laboratory, Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics Facility, regular and P2 containment greenhouses, and world-class facilities for communicating and computing. This is all hardware waiting for software, including intellectual inputs.
The ASP is now being extended to sub-Saharan Africa. On 8 September 2009, ICRISAT signed an MoU with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam, to help set up ASP-like science parks. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
The ASP is indeed, to borrow from the ICRISAT Annual Report for 2004, a "new architecture of innovation." As quoted, ASP Managing Director Barry Shapiro said in 2008 (icrisat.org), that the ASP is designed to "blend the commercial vigor of the private sector with the scientific and technical expertise of ICRISAT." Many heads are better than one if they have synergy.
For the record, before and after the ASP, ICRISAT and partners released in 77 countries more than 600 improved crop varieties and hybrids between 1976 and 2007. The first in the history of the CGIAR, the ASP is meant to intensify innovative public-private partnerships in value chains. The value chain is the distributor of benefits; the challenge lies in searching for shared values.
Some other ASP-related happenings and occasions worth mentioning are the following:
Nandan Biomatrix Ltd has set up a facility within the ASP that is dedicated to research in the processing of herbal formulations from Aloe vera, Safed musli (Chlorophytum borivilianum, claimed to be a natural Viagra) etc. Nandan also has an MoU with ICRISAT for collaboration in developing wastelands through the raising of biofuel plantations of Jatropha, Pongamia and other species.
The GTZ-ICRISAT Initiative is designed to assist small farmers within 50 km of a biodiesel plant site in the scientific cultivation of oilseed-bearing trees like Jatropha and Pongamia, up to and including oil extraction and marketing, through training, technology support and field demonstrations.
With the Sir Dorabjee Tata Trust, ICRISAT has been working to scale up watershed development in the districts of Guna in Madhya Pradesh and Boondi in Rajasthan. The Guna partnership has developed new soybean varieties along with new cropping systems, as well as enhanced market links, including information diffusion.
The TVS Agri-Sciences Research Institute has been working with ICRISAT on a natural resource management project in the village of Eruvadi in the district of Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.
With Philipps University of Marburg, Germany, ICRISAT has signed an MoU to carry out collaborative work in food science and food safety, including the production of neutraceuticals and development of rapid detection techniques for food bio-actives and contaminants.
Pravardhan Seeds and other public and private seed companies have been producing large quantities of the new pigeon pea Pushkal, the world´s first commercially available hybrid of this species. It is an ICRISAT breeding achievement that broke the natural yield barrier of the crop. Dar says that with 40% higher yields than the best current varieties, "Pushkal is truly the magic pea." The other magical quality of ICRISAT´s pigeon pea is that because of its strong root system, among other things, it is being successfully used to control soil erosion in China, where this crop is being grown in about 150,000 hectares on the hilly slopes. In fact, I understand it was the Chinese who discovered this unique use of Pushkal. It takes a modern variety to show that even in a traditional society like China, the people know what is good for them.
There´s more. Bioseed Research Ltd is developing transgenic cotton. Seedworks Ltd is developing transgenic vegetables. Sessler Tom and Hyglass are developing a fermentor and some agricultural implements.
All that goes to show that the ASP allows the pursuit of institutional happiness.
Meanwhile, ICRISAT has launched a Center of Excellence in Genomics in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India. Avesthagen is a partner in this one, being interested in GMO/food safety testing.
All in all, the ASP is a major feature of ICRISAT's vision and strategy up to 2015. Team Captain of ICRISAT William Dar has said:
We strongly believe that collaborative arrangements and strategic alliances are the ways of winning organizations. Our collaborations are geared towards helping mobilize cutting-edge science and technology for the well-being of the poor in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. (The ASP) will be the premier public-private partnership platform for this purpose in the dry tropics.
With this, in exactly 2543 words, using facts, figures and figures of speech, I believe I have shown you that it already is.
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