To Catch An Insight. Forget Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

If you´re looking for trouble, you came to the right place. If you can´t solve it, you´re part of the problem!

http://www.icrisat.org/Vision/chapter1.htm. Last night, I surfed to there and while I was reading ´ICRISAT´s Vision and Strategy to 2015,´ I realized that the first chapter was showing me, in between declarations of intentions, affirmations of complexities, headaches, quodlibets. No matter; I´ve never been afraid of any intellectual thesis, antithesis, synthesis – except when I don´t understand it.

Then I had a brainstorm. So here´s MyLaundryList of problems besetting Eastern and Southern Africa from the files of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). ICRISAT did it right; if you want to solve a problem, first you have to define the problem. Theirs was an exercise in fertility. Now, let´s have ours. I´m asking you to scan the list of difficulties and note that out of the chaos have come the new vision, mission and strategy of ICRISAT. Can we come out with a different vision? We can. Will our vision be clearer? Now, that´s a problem. Will our mission be possible? That´s another problem. Will our strategy be achievable? That has to be worked out.

What´s the prize if you can unravel this, MyLaundryList? A broad smile on your face at the very least; a laugh would be a bonus. A flash of intuition would be best.

Now, I´m asking you to translate technical language (coming from bureaucrats like them) to popular language (coming from infocrats like us). A bureaucrat is a stickler for language; an infocrat is a stickler for information, a hoper for insight. The real exercise here is: Trying to catch an insight. The thing is, when you´re not paying attention, when you´re not logical, when you´re not reasoning out, only then may you catch an insight. Only then the Eureka! Moment.

In any case, let me help you – you read, I translate, amplify, simplify. To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau: ´As you simplify your list, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.´ Translating is one road to insight. Let´s see:

Poverty, malnutrition, food insecurity and degradation of the natural resource base are major problems afflicting many countries in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA).

Translating: The people of the drylands of Eastern and Southern Africa are poor, malnourished, don´t have enough food. Their lands are infertile; their soils lack water; their crops yield only so much; their livestock don´t produce enough. To catch an insight: What´s common among the four problems?

Sub-Saharan Africa is at the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The short-term effects have been a decline in agricultural labor, production and incomes and a concurrent and dramatic increase in expenditures on health and funerals. In the longer term, there will be loss in inter-generational transfer of knowledge and traditional social security mechanisms.

Translating: Sub-Saharan Africa is the nerve center of infectious, contagious, preventable AIDS. Today, the farms are short of workers, the workers are short of income, the funeral parlors are short of coffins. Tomorrow, this generation shall have passed away, including its wisdom, including its social fabric. Insight: Avoidance is worth a pound of prevention.

The ESA constitutes some 21 countries with a population of over 350 million people, more than half of whom live in extreme poverty, making the region one of the highest concentrations of poor people in the world.

Translating: The ESA covers 21 countries, more than 350 million people, more than 175 million of whom lead lives of quiet desperation.

Over the last decade, the region has witnessed increasing incidence of poverty through its various manifestations including an increase in the number of hungry and malnourished people.

Translating: In the last 10 years, the region made more poor, more underfed, more under-nourished citizens.

About 75% of the population live in rural areas that account for over 80% of the total extremely poor.

Translating: In ESA, 3 out of 4 people live in the countryside, 4 out of 5 are very poor.

The incidence and severity of deprivation is highest in the less-favored semi-arid and marginal areas that suffer from poor infrastructure, geographical isolation, poor market access, and vulnerability to climatic variability and drought.

Translating: You can find the most number of poor people in the drylands and wastelands of ESA, with all those bad roads, bad markets, bad weather, dry soils in the long dry months.

High levels of soil erosion, nutrient depletion and degradation of agro-ecosystems contribute to low productivity and declining ecosystem resilience in many areas.

Translating: The soils are wasting away, their nutrients are exhausted. The villagers´ produce have been declining; the carrying capacities of their farms and gardens have long been reached.

The magnitude of soil fertility depletion on arable lands is one of the highest in the world and by far exceeds the rates of nutrient replenishment through application of organic and commercial fertilizers.

Translating: You can find here some of the poorest lands on earth, so infertile that the organic and inorganic fertilizers applied so far have not solved the problem of soil poverty.

Low productivity is due to degraded soils, lack of inputs and unfavorable weather conditions.

Translating: The farmer is poor, the soil is poor, the weather is bad, the harvest is few.

Most of the resource-poor farmers grow their crops in degraded soils without inputs such as chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

Translating: Most of the poor farmers plant their poor soils expecting much, even as they invest little in them. Today, farmers cannot afford the new ways of farming, and may have forgotten yesterday´s.

Rainfall in is extremely variable in amount and distribution, making rainfed agriculture risky and thus preventing farmers from investing in inputs that enhance productivity.

Translating: The rains come, the rains go at their own pleasure, the farmers at their mercy. Insight: How do you catch a rain?

The area under irrigation is very low in Sub-Saharan Africa, only 3.7% compared to 10% in South America, 29% in East Asia and 41% in Southeast Asia.

Translating: Irrigation is very much a problem. In Sub-Saharan Africa, less than 4% of the farms are irrigated. Compare that with 10% in South America, 29% in East Asia and 41% in Southeast Asia. Insights: The African farmers are poorer than the Southeast Asians. Water is the great leveler.

Poor market access is a result of many factors such as the lack of a functioning marketing system that links the many small producers with domestic and international buyers.

Translating: To simplify, a market is people to sell to. In the region, beyond their farms, the farmers can hardly link to local traders, much less to international buyers. Insights: The problem with the market is that there´s none. Market is another great leveler.

Several highly dispersed small producers supply non-homogenous products to local markets.

Translating: There are two problems here. One, small producers are miles apart, which does not encourage co-operation for economies of scale. Two, small farmers supply the market with mixed, not graded produce. Insight: Consumers know what they want, farmers don´t.

The volume of marketable surplus is very low, and hence the transaction costs of marketing for individual farmers are high.

Translating: As is, for each farmer, since his produce is low, his marketing cost is high. Insight: Don´t bring the farmer to the market; instead, bring the market to the farmer.

Varieties currently grown by farmers are not able to satisfy the quality attributes required by diverse markets.

Translating: Farmers reap what they sow, when they fail to consider what the consumers want. Insight validated.

Africa has poor infrastructure – roads are few and not well maintained, the railroad length is under 2% of the world´s total and dilapidated, storage and product handling systems are inefficient, all adding to the cost of doing business on the continent.

Translating: The roads are few and the worse for wear; the railroad is short and impaired, not repaired. Storage for farm produce is poor, the handling leaves much to be desired. All that adds up to bad business. You are in Africa.

Poor dissemination of improved varieties is another challenge. Improved varieties that are adapted to target environments and both farmer and market needs have been developed but have not been disseminated.

Translating: Good seeds are hard to find. The varieties that grow well even in bad fields, that fit farmer´s practice, that the people like to buy – the farmers never heard of them. Insight: What the farmers don´t know hurt them, and us.

One of the major limitations of the technology delivery system is lack of an efficient and effective seed multiplication and supply system.

Translating: One of the big headaches of experts in Africa is that there is the lack of a system of seed producers and seed suppliers. Where there is a system, it is inefficient and ineffective – the seed growers are earning too little, the seed suppliers are earning too much.

While some effort is being made to improve seed availability by involving farmers and primary cooperatives in seed multiplication, the lack of quality control and low capacity at the local level are hurdles to progress.

Translating: There already are cooperatives to produce seeds; as they are, they have one opportunity and one problem. The opportunity is the high demand; the problem is the low quality of the seeds produced. Insight: Modern farming has so far failed to teach the farmer the value of quality.

The extension systems in most African countries are weak, thus causing a bottleneck in technology dissemination.

Translating: The extension systems in most African countries are weak, causing sags or snags in the delivery of technology: seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, data, information – not to mention credit where necessary and the produce where profitable. Insight: Should not extension be subsidized by technology?

A pro-poor agricultural policy is not in place and systems of rights of land tenure inhibit farmer investment in agriculture.

Translating: Each Government needs to come out with guidelines in agriculture based on this dictum by the late great Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay: ´Those who have less in life should have more in law.´ Insight: If by land tenure you mean land distribution, at some point in time you will run out of land to distribute – what then?

Capacity-building in various sectors dealing with agriculture is weak, starting from research, extension, postharvest, linkages with market and extending as far as trade-related negotiations.

Translating: Africa is weak in the necessary sectors, in people, procedures, policies: research, extension, postharvest, market, trade relations with other countries. Insight: Agriculture is not a priority in Africa. Why not?

Investment in agricultural research and training is also inadequate.

Translating: Africa must invest much more in research and training in agriculture.

Weak private sector: The dominance of the Government and the public sector in African agriculture has not been effective in accelerating intensification of production, technology adoption and has not brought the desired growth.

Translating: African governments have not been able to convince the private sector to invest in more productive and diverse agriculture, in modern technologies to bring about higher productivity and further public growth. Insight: The private sector has failed to see the opportunities for higher harvests and more products for more markets.

Despite the surplus reserve of grains, food insecurity and child malnutrition in SAT Asia remain at unacceptably high levels, both in favored and less-favored areas.

Translating: Even where there are food reserves, too many people suffer from lack of food and too many children suffer from malnutrition everywhere.

Owing to the high levels of population growth and unequal access to productive assets, the gains from productivity growth in agriculture were not sufficient to bring down the levels of poverty.

Translating: Where the population multiplies faster than the food can be produced and farmers lack modern tools and cannot get affordable credit, higher agriculture cannot lower the number of poor people. Insight: Do we know which is the bigger problem: more people or less access to inputs?

Agriculture and livelihoods in the SAT have evolved under the influence of biotic (pest and disease incidences) and abiotic constraints. The most binding abiotic constraints are related to water scarcity and poor fertility of soils (largely related at present to micronutrient deficiencies as N and P fertilizers are widely used).

Translating: Agriculture in the dryland tropics has many enemies: pests, diseases, water scarcity, infertile soils. The effects of the first two can be mitigated; the occurrences of the last two can be prevented. For instance, farmers must learn to supply their soils with at least 7 micronutrients: boron, chlorine, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, zinc, not simply the macronutrients: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur. Insight: The current lab analysis for soil nutrients is only for detecting a few macronutrients. Why neglect the trace elements?

Since water is vital for crop growth, the low and unreliable rainfall in the region for rainfed agriculture makes drought management a key strategy for agricultural development.

Translating: Crops need water to grow. As humans need crops, humans must learn to manage water for their society to grow. Insight: To manage the drought, we must manage the water.

With increasing openness in the global economy, national self-sufficiency may not be a viable development strategy, as certain food products may be cheaper to import than to produce domestically. However, considering agriculture´s role as a means of livelihood for millions of poor people, enhancing its competitiveness by cutting average costs of production is critical for the survival of many smallholder farmers.

Translating: With the world knocking at your door, it is cheaper to buy import than local produce. But pity the poor farmers, millions of them. Some live next door to you. What governments can do is decrease the price of farming and increase the prize. Farming would then become a good fight against pests, diseases, the vagaries of nature, competition. Insight: Government can do more; they can subsidize the farmers like the United States do the American farmers. For their own good.

Now then, are my translations perfect? Of course not. But they´re practical. So, we´ve been playing a game. Now you ask me: What´s the meaning of all this!? Simple. We need bureaucrats like them. Bureaucrats need infocrats like us.