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MANILA - In Zimbabwe, I learn that  the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics , ICRISAT is telling a family that 9 kg/ha of nitrogen applied to corn is most profitable (icrisat.org). In the Philippines, I learn that  the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture , OPAPA, is recommending for corn as much as 425 kg/ha (about 9 bags) (openacademy.ph). Both are impossible! Isn’t 9 kg a little too little, and 9 kg times 47 a little too much? Juxtaposed like that, with those numbers we are forced to make a paradigm shift along with country-hopping, not to mention climate change. ICRISAT is talking to poor farmers and OPAPA is talking to rich farmers, or those who can afford to raise at least PhP 10,000 (about $220) for fertilizer alone for 1 corn cropping. ICRISAT must be talking of micro-dosing, using a bottle cap to measure out the fertilizer; OPAPA must be talking of macro-dosing, using unending fistfuls of fertilizer. The ICRISAT technology is tried and test

ADDIS ABABA - This one is about small farmers thinking big, big donors thinking sex, Africa thinking of a really big revolution. Africa needs a different kind of Green Revolution , USAID Mission Director  Thomas Staal  said (ethiopia.usembassy.gov). In fact, the African farmers were left behind by the Green Revolution that Borlaug wrought. Staal was speaking to the delegates to the by-invitation-only Borlaug Symposium 2010 in July. He was calling for a “Grassroots Green Revolution.” By the term “grassroots,” he referred to the small farmers, and he said they needed to become businessmen. Tillers thinking trade? That would require a continental paradigm shift. On second thought, perhaps it would require rather a tectonic shift. He was dreaming for the poor African farmers. Staal said the farmers must connect directly to the market, and when they do, this will spur growth in the small towns as well as “create economic opportunities for the landless and for the youth.” That i