Bill Gates, Nobel Prize for Economics 2008! Well He Inspires US To Creative Science

24 January 2008, Bill Gates, Chair of Microsoft Corporation, speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and proposes an outstanding but looks like an outrageous, capitalist idea, that which he calls ‘creative capitalism.’ Afterwards, people talk about it but no one is about to congratulate Bill Gates for that one flash of genius in a hundred years. I will now. I don’t know Microsoft’s Bill Gates to be an innovator in the sense of Apple’s Steve Jobs brainstorming an iPod, but this time he wins my Nobel Prize for Economics 2008.

Creative capitalism is throwing big money after little moneys to make better. Thinking globally, acting locally. ‘Economic demand is not the same as economic need,’ Bill Gates says. Hear that David Ricardo, John Maynard Keynes? Demand is finite because that’s what we make it. Creative capitalism is creating demand where there has only been need, creating a market where there has only been a longing. Thinking locally, acting globally. Turning the economic globe upside down. With creativity, Bill Gates redefines capitalism (and socialism) as more of the interests of the poor rather than the rich. From each according to one’s ability, to each according to one’s demand.

In trying to explain creative capitalism, economists Tracy Williams, Michael Deich & Josh Daniel start by saying they do not believe that companies will ever ‘forsake protectionism.’ (Because the big are afraid of the small?) They do not expect them to act in ways ‘inconsistent with their self-interest.’ (Because the big can’t think beyond their box? Can’t look beyond their net?) Rather, they say, ‘Creative capitalism starts from a fundamentally different premise – working with the incentives faced by business to find common ground between their interests and those of the poor’ (creativecapitalism.typepad.com). You make the poor your market. But how? That’s creativity.

In his Davos speech, Bill Gates explains creative capitalism as ‘an approach where governments, businesses and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities.’

Isn’t that what science is? A force for good for more people to profit from, or be known by, by doing what doesn’t come naturally, that is, helping more of the poor. By Bill Gates’ definition, science is supposed to be creative science all along!

In a press release dated 25 October 2008, Director General William Dar of ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) advocates for poor farmers in Asia, Africa and America ‘policy, institutional and financial bailouts.’ He doesn’t mean a massive bailout of the 1 billion poor of the world, which is 15.15% of the 6.6 billion global population as of July 2008. By ‘bailout,’ he does not mean ‘doleout’ either – rather, he means ‘assistance.’ Probably thinking of the US $85 billion bailout of the #1 American Insurance Group, if the rich deserve assistance, ‘who, more than the poor, has a right to substantial assistance from governments?’ Dar asks.

For ‘substantial assistance,’ Dar mentions supports in terms of income, policy, infrastructure, access to higher quality inputs (including seeds), irrigation, institutions. A big bailout like that for the AIG is to prevent a domino effect of multiplying enterprises that will collapse, resulting in the collapse of the whole economy; small bailouts such as subsidized high-quality seeds and subsidized incomes for poor farmers are precisely to create an opposite domino effect, that of multiplying enterprises that will build up the whole economy. Perhaps only the US can afford King-size bailouts; all other governments, especially those of the developing countries, can afford only Small Farmer-size bailouts. Enough is enough.

While developing capitalist countries get more wealth from agriculture, Dar says, they expend less wealth for agriculture. They get 50% of their Gross Domestic Product from agriculture; they budget only 10% of their public spending for it. I see this is not a capitalist contradiction; I believe it is merely logical capitalism – the capitalist doesn’t believe that if one inputs more in it, one will multiply the outputs a hundredfold. Because agriculture is a risky business.

To make my discussion of agriculture less unwieldy, I will stick to crop production and leave out here animal husbandry. I see these risks in crop farming:

(1) Typhoons – One typhoon can reduce a whole crop to zero value.
(2) Lack of soil moisture – This can be brought about by unpredictable rains or inadequate supply of irrigation water.
(3) Insect pests – These can eat up farm profits.
(4) Crop diseases – Diseases reduce yields by 50% or more.
(5) High costs of inputs – Fertilizers and pesticides make up the bulk of expenditures in crop farming. When their prices go up, the farmer’s income goes down.
(6) Exposure to pesticides – The modern farmer fights insect pests and diseases with pesticides, in carelessness exposing one’s body to the toxic chemicals. Any such exposure is always unhealthy, sometimes deadly.
(7) Pollution of environment – The great use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides results in the great increase in the pollution of the environment.

So, as I see it, low investment in agriculture by developing countries is their way of reducing the risks from crop farming. Because they are not thinking creative science.

Borrowing from Bill Gates, creative science is throwing big ideas after little ideas to make better. Science can learn from that to create and consequently diffuse more technologies.

So: Think creative science. So: There are better ways of mitigating risks in crop agriculture. This list is what I have so far gathered from my current understanding of the scientific literature coming from ICRISAT and that which is available on the Internet, working with the basics of what I learned from my BS Agriculture from the University of the Philippines’ College of Agriculture 43 years ago:

(1) Choose varieties that can stand adverse weather.
(2) Raise crops that are stingy on soil moisture.
(3) Plant insect-resistant crops.
(4) Cultivate disease-resistant varieties.
(5) Practice low-input high-output farming.
(6) If you have to spray, follow safety precautions.
(7) Better still, learn IPM (integrated pest management).

On the whole, the advanced varieties they have of the 5 mandate crops of ICRISAT – sorghum, pearl millet, pigeon pea, chickpea and peanut (groundnut) – are misers on soil moisture. Team ICRISAT has been developing crop varieties that do not easily succumb to the attacks of pests and diseases. Also, Team ICRISAT has been coming up with techniques that produce more for less, like less fertilizer to apply – tiny doses of fertilizer on the seeds, not the soil -- it calls it microdosing (the technique is new, the term is not). Invented earlier in Asia, probably by Filipinos, IPM requires natural insect and disease control techniques and reduces the use of chemicals.

It stands to reason. The crops that can withstand moisture stress – those that thrive on the drylands – can withstand the attack of insects and disease-causing bacteria, fungi and viruses, more than the crops that rely on irrigation to survive.

Yet, even all that high productivity is not enough for the small farmers who are powerless against those who exploit them in production, processing and marketing. Such as the implosive power of 5-6: For you to buy your fertilizer, for every 5 I lend you, you owe me 6 everyday until you are able to pay back. Or I loan you what you need for pesticides, but you sell me what you harvest right after harvest, and I dictate the price.

Creative science is for scientists to do something more than just increase yields – they must help decrease cash outflows and increase cash inflows. You can increase the income of farmers given the same crops and yields if you just shield them from the exploitation of iniquitous people who manipulate economic forces for their selfish reasons. Those uncreative capitalists!

Given all that, I propose that scientists in research institutes and academicians in universities also engage themselves in the study of creative crop husbandry, not to mention creative animal husbandry, leading to creative capitalism. I propose that they do applied research and find common ground among the interests of what I shall call here the Four Sides of Creative Capitalism: Local Government, Local NGO, Local Rich and Local Poor – so that there is work and profit and recognition on all 4 sides.

The ABI (Agri-Business Incubator) of ICRISAT is in the right direction toward creative capitalism, an idea whose time has come. And so I’m not surprised that, announced in advance, ABI-ICRISAT has won the highest recognition from the Asian Association of Business Incubators (AABI) – The AABI Incubator of the Year Award 2008 – to be given during their 13th General Assembly on October 29, this time in Seoul, Korea. Congratulations, Team ICRISAT!

And Bill Gates, thanks! for a radical idea that opens many windows of opportunity and displays many a vista of social progress never before seen in the parallel real and virtual universes. A Brave New World. «