William Dar Is Bringing Home Global Vision With Science To PH Agriculture

He is someone you probablydo not know, but whom you must know. If you knew him to be soft-spoken, amiable and an Ilocano, you have to know much more!

Our new PH Secretary of Agriculture, William Dar, is new to millions of Filipinos, but not to me. I came to know him personally when former PhilRice Executive Director Santiago R Obien, SRO, another Ilocano, introduced us early 2007 at the Dars' home in Quezon City for a story I was going to write – which became a hundred stories when I, a science journalist based in the Manila, became an international consulting writer for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, based in India. At that time, Mr Dar was on his 8th year as Director General of ICRISAT; he would go on as DG for a total of 15 uninterrupted years, unprecedented in the history of leadership of international science centers in the world.

Now look at the images (globe-eye image from Dreamstime, dreamstime.com, WDD image from YouTube, youtube.com) – my message is: Global to Digital. Today, if you cannot bring global science to the local scene, at the very least through the very personal cellphone, you have a limited vision.

On 30 December 2014, the day before Mr Dar retired as DG of ICRISAT, he launched the phablet, phone plus tablet. I will now quote from my own story ("NUNCi. The William Dar-inspired Multiplication Tablet," 31 December 2014, iCRiSAT Watch, icrisatwatch.blogspot.com):

This is the modern stone tablet of commandments that says, “Go forth & multiply!”

The news release is titled, “ICRISAT launches low-cost phablet to empower small farmers” (ANN, 30 December 2014, economictimes.indiatimes.com). Data in your hands empower you, correct, but I wouldn't call it "low-cost" because at US $299, the NUNCi will cost a farmer PhP 13,000 in the Philippines, which is a lot of money even if subsidized by the Noynoy government. The proper "economic" term is "cost-effective," which means "it's good for the money." You can easily recoup your expense if you apply the knowledge you get from it. It's farm knowledge you could recall at the touch of a finger and should bring you good income, multiplying your blessings from the land.

Note that the Economic Times of India said that ICRISAT meant for the phablet "to empower small farmers."

Now then, in agriculture, if you do not empower the small farmers, whose side are you?!

With Mr Dar and his doctorate in Horticulture from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, and his prior leaderships of the Bureau of Agricultural Research and the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic & Natural Resources Research & Development, we can be 100% sure that he is bringing science to the people, unlikeany other Secretary of Agriculture the Philippines has ever known.

There is more. From 2000 to 2014, as seen through the eyes of Mr Dar, ICRISAT had this global Vision: "Science with a human face."

If your science does not have a human phase, what good is it?!@517