Science with a Human Face: The Untold Story

Sir, Ek Baar aur itihas banaate hain (Sir, let’s make the history again) – I requested Dr. S. Nigam, internationally acclaimed Groundnut Breeder. What was I referring to? We need to go 25 years back into the history to understand the meaning of this sentence.

ICRISAT: 25 Years Ago

ICRISAT was in a quite a bad shape 25 years ago before Dr. William Dar took the charge of ICRISAT in 1999. With donors suffering fatigue and the institution slowly losing direction, ICRISAT was considered as sinking ship. Almost 50% of the staff had to leave. As Dr. William Dar mentioned “before our scientists researched for the sake of researching. They used science for the sake of science”. They didn’t know how to take their research to the farm and learn impact of their research findings. During his tenure, Dr. Dar and his team of scientists virtually achieved impossible, turning a sinking ship into a surplus institution with new brand of science.

New Brand: Science with a Human Face

Dr. William Dar and his team of Scientists defied approaches of the past, and started refocusing the efforts on research that would actually benefit farmers. As mentioned by him “.......we needed to do agricultural research for development, not research for research’s sake. Not science for Science sake”. That was the beginning of Science with a Human Face.

The Change Process

In 2000, ICRISAT team approached CARE, an international development agency to collaborate in taking the research to farmers’ field. Having my background in agriculture and wearing a cap of managing one of the most successful livelihoods projects of CARE (WISH Project) at that time I was roped-in to coordinate and work with a team of ICRISAT scientists. Very soon I, Dr. S. Nigam (Groundnut Breeder); Dr. P. Gaur (Chickpea breeder); and Dr. K. B Saxena (Pigeanpea breeder) formed a strong team. We worked day and night to first conduct a feasibility study in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh; and come-up with five pronged strategy which focused on crop diversification on residual moisture. We subsequently worked together for three years in the field to create that history. It is well documented.

Due to change in CARE’s policy in 2003, I moved on to take the charge Swiss-India bilateral program in Odisha. However, we four always kept in touch. This was in this context I met Dr. Nigam on 24th February 2023 at his residence in Hyderabad. Dr. Gaur had also come to Hyderabad, however due to certain important work he left early.

I may be wrong but when I attended three days conference organized by ICRISAT on dryland agriculture between 21-23 February 2023, I got the feeling that ICRISAT has gone back to the past, and trying to re-invent the wheel. I also realized that people want to stay in their comfort zone (of doing research for the sake of research), rather than taking it to field to benefit small farmers.

SAI Story

After leading a high-profile life and managing several international assignments in 18 countries, I went down to the basics of sustainable development in 2013, quietly staying and working on my alternative development model with tribals in remote Odisha. I started working on one acre low-cost agroforestry system on degraded land with small tribal farmers as a social enterprise. I had briefly come back to mainstreamed development in 2017-18 when I felt the model is matured. In 2017, SEED Uno adjudged SAI model among the eco-inclusive model for replication in Africa. NITI Aayog also organized a meeting with key Indian ministries on replicating this model across India. This meeting gave me good learning. I learned that how bureaucrats can give hundreds of reasons for not supporting a good incentive but cannot find a good reason to support such initiatives. I also learned one of the inherent weaknesses of SAI model was to depend on external investment for scaling-up. Therefore, I went back to my drawing board to correct this weakness, and make it self-financed and self-sustainable.

Meanwhile, SAI continued to winning awards and recognition at national and international levels. World Economic Forum identified SAI as one of the top 13 innovators which can help India government to achieve its afforestation target. BRICS awarded it as a Winner in SDG 2 category (Zero Hunger). FICCI recognized it as Winner in Startup category for making impact.

By 2022, I was able to correct the inherent weakness, and returned back to the scene. SAI Agroforestry model is now being replicated in different states of India as well as in Africa. We no more depend on any funding or investment even for scaling up.

I have already received invitation to visit Kenya, DRC and Rwanda in coming months to discuss and finalize SAI’s replication in those countries. SAI together with its partner has submitted a proposal to India government to replicate SAI model in 10 West African countries.

It was in this context I requested Dr. Nigam to “let’s make the history again’. We together discussed the strategies to replicate the model in Africa and reached on consensus. I will be working on the strategies for next few months and hope to replicate this one acre self-financed and self-sustaining model of agroforestry across India and Africa.

Jitendra Sinha

Co-founder – SAI