Future Resilience in Agriculture Methods for an Economy of Communion

Speech of Group CEO Lawrence Chong on the 14th of March at Abuja Continental on the occasion of the launch of Consulus in Africa through the partnership with SCL and to bring SCL’s Agri methods into the world.

Dear distinguished guests, to Dr Andrew Kwasawri, Christina and Abiola, and the SCL team, whom I heartily call my Brothers and Sisters, good morning, and I am so happy to be here. And I am especially pleased because a great leader in interreligious dialogue is here among us, whom I admire greatly, Card. Onaiyekan is here with us. His speeches have stirred my heart whenever I have listened to him speak at global meetings of Religions for Peace. So happy to see you Your Eminence.?

It is my first time here on this beautiful continent, and it has been my dream to come to give thanks because I want to be clear about what African friends did for my soul in 1995. I come from Singapore, a tiny island in Southeast Asia. In the 1990s, Singapore was all about money, making money, and nothing about a higher purpose. In that period, I met a global Catholic movement that said that Jesus prayed for unity in John 17:21 and that we can make it our mission to bring about a united world. I was intrigued, but still, I did not understand what unity meant. Is it a feeling, an action, or what is it?

So this Catholic movement, which some of you know as the Focolare movement, invited me to an international youth gathering in Rome called the Genfest in 1995, which means gathering a new generation. I went as part of a youth delegation that comprised of youth from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. We were invited to perform a dance to contribute to this event, which saw 15,000 young people coming from all over the world. Well, I am not a dancer, but for the sake of unity, I did it. So naturally, we had to rehearse as the event would be broadcast via satellite to the world. So, we waited for our turn in a small, cold school hall in Rome. But before us, the African delegation came. They came from different African nations, and about a hundred of them were smiling and moving.

Then the music started, and the room stood still. As I saw my African friends move to the tune of the music, their movements, their smiles at each other and us were one. It was lively music with drums, feet, and chorus voices. It was a sound that never left my heart. It was a sound of humanity. I understood there and then, that the mission of the United World is possible for me, even if it seems impossible and sounds crazy. As these hundred African friends moved, they moved the room, and I felt like moving with them. And the room became warm again. I very much wanted to embrace them, but as a shy Asian Chinese boy, I kept to my spot. But that day, my heart leaped out of my soul. Unity I learned through this simple experience by African friends is one of feeling and simultaneously an act of love! It is like a dance that you start that others want to dance with you.?

And so you can imagine how happy and grateful I am to be among you to be here in Abuja, also known as the Center of Unity. My Brother, Dr Andrew, invited Stan and I to be at the SCL farm to be with his people. To taste the fruits of the land and see how a new paradise is emerging was an eye-opener. Yesterday morning, we walked the massive grounds of the SCL farm, learning about all the different regenerative agriculture techniques. At one point, we came across an approach that SCL teaches farmers how to regenerate lands that have lost their topsoil without using harmful fertilizers. So before the rainy season, you have to dig a pit in the shape of a half-moon and keep the rest of what you have dug up in a crescent shape so that when the rain comes, it flows into this pit and stays there. In the middle of the pit, you have put in dead leaves or what you call biomass. This then acts as a sponge when the rain comes and retains it. This whole process of water, biomass together, and breaking down of the leaves while retaining water can generate rich compost and act as a rich fertilizer for new plants. This technique, also known as half moon, is based on African wisdom and practice that many have forgotten. As we walked the beautiful grounds, we saw many half-moons filled with various trees and vegetables.?

The image of the half moon about regenerative agri is also the story of the Economy. The original foundations of the economy are based on trust and mutual exchange on the basis of the common good. But overtime greed and selfishness have removed a lot of the goodwill in our economy, our equivalent of the top soil. We have become so immune to poverty that we accept that our economy will always be grounds without the rich topsoil of trust and the common good.?

In 1991, Unesco Peace Prize winner Chiara Lubich and founder of the Focolare Movement felt we can do something about the economy. On a trip to Brazil where, she saw how the slums of Sao Paolo surrounded the city like a crown of thorns; how can we create a new economic model, not one of extraction but one of communion. She called entrepreneurs and professors to boldly explore a new model, which she termed as an economy of communion where, due to a new generation of entrepreneurs and approach, no one is genuinely in need. Like regenerative agriculture, the economy of communion is an attempt to restore the principles of capitalism to its original foundations, one of trust and the common good. Adam Smith, widely known as the Father of Capitalism, wrote: “To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.” Just like SCL’s fight, which is arduous to convince farmers not to use artificial fertilizers but to use what nature has provided. So is similarly the path to changing the economy.?

I am launching my book in June about my twenty years of experience in Creative Change and as a changemaker. And if there are two things I learned from twenty years of change is. First, learning how to see what truly is going on is far greater than doing. You can be very hardworking about change, but if you do not know how to see the deeper issues, nothing will budge. The second thing is, evil is more intentional than good. Why do I say this? Too many changemakers believe that by doing good, it is enough, but the challenge is they are not matching the scale of those who do evil. Evil tends to do things that are much bigger and more ambitious, like taking over governments. One of the things I learned in interreligious dialogue which was humbling, is how intentional are extremists who are very well-funded, and how intentional they are in sowing discord constantly. They are often way more organised than the people of good will.?

If you look deeper in the economy today, there is greater poverty than material poverty. It is the poverty of trust, poverty of institutions, and poverty of solutions. Without trust, without good institutions, and without scalable solutions for good, the economy, like earth without sufficient top soil, cannot generate an economy for the common good.?

In 2017, Pope Francis in meeting all those of us involved in the Economy of Communion said: ““The Economy of Communion, if it wants to be faithful to its charism, must not only care for the victims but build a system where there are ever fewer victims, where, possibly, there may no longer be any. As long as the economy still produces one victim and there is still a single discarded person, communion has not yet been realized; the celebration of universal fraternity is not full. Therefore, we must work towards changing the rules of the game of the socio-economic system. Imitating the Good Samaritan of the Gospel is not enough.”

What the pope said is so true, reinforcing what I said earlier that evil is more intentional than good. So in our work at Consulus, where we believe that change has to happen at the systemic level and work with leaders and organisations of good, to help amplify their power, we had to first understand how the world works. This is one of the reasons why we started with bringing change in the consulting world because consultants influence policy makers, leaders and shape decisions. I understood for Consulus, unless we are able to enter the rooms of decision makers to help them make intentional decisions for good. All nice advocacy for good will fall on deaf ears. This is important also because the largest consulting firms in the world are not designed for intentional good. They have been convicted in courts of manipulating political powers in a wide range of issues, from financial, migrant, and drug abuse. So Consulus aim is be the global alternative of such firms but influence the world for good.?

So for Consulus we must be a global change-making consulting practice that can influence public and private policy for good. This is why we work with Fortune 500 companies and governments, and we need to be familiar with the flow of money, good and bad, and understand why the abuses happen. This is why, with that systems knowledge, we can work with change-making organizations like SCL; we know how the system works and how to help SCL scale for good.

The next thing that we do is to influence a new generation of change makers. Chiara Lubich often speaks about a new humanity to impact the economy. This is why last year, we began to double down on our leadership transformation programs and roll them out for individuals, for any young people seeking to find themselves to change the world for good.?

With this partnership with SCL, we hope to do both. First through our global presence in 21 cities from Americas, Asia, Europe and now here with SCL in Africa, we want to introduce the method of SCL through a new method of transformation in Agriculture to the world which we call AgriCore. In other words, we want to bring African wisdom to the world through our current suite of specialists practices. SCL will provide the data and practices, and we will develop the entire consulting model to help other organizations in need of regenerative agri transformation to be future resilient. We will announce this in detail in Singapore at Consulus annual conference known as Shape the World summit on 21st June at Jewel in Changi Airport. I like to invite all of you to join us.

Then, for the youth and young leaders here in Nigeria, together with SCL, Consulus will introduce personal development for future resilience, such as Personalcore books such as My Masterplan, so that youth can go through facilitated programs to think about their purpose and their calling. We will also introduce leadership core here so that promising leaders can learn about how to shape the world through their various callings.

Together with SCL, our ambition is to respond to Pope Francis, who just marked his 11th year as Pope yesterday, that through a new systemic change method inspired by regenerative agriculture, we can not only restore lands but inspire a whole new generation of small agri entrepreneurs to join us to restore lands and the economy, and this time for the common good. I am not a good dancer I hope Andrew is, I know Stan dances well, so hopefully when we dance, you will all dance with us. Thank you.?