Sense with a human face. Turning the market economy upside down

MANILA: William Dar was the superlative Team Captain of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India. Under him, the mantra of ICRISAT was "Science with a human face." Towards the end of his 15-year reign as Director General of ICRISAT, he wrote a book and founded a movement in the same year, 2014. The book is Greening The Grey, subtitled "Expanding The Green Revolution," and the movement is Inanglupa (which is Tagalog for Ina Daga, which is Ilocano for Mother Earth). (Image: I cut my original scan of the book cover into two and combined them to make one rectangular image, which I prefer.) The book has been written; the movement is beginning to write its story. Now, what story?

William Dar's reason for writing Greening The Grey can be found, surprise! on page 180, the last page before the Epilogue, where he says:

Can a visionary inspiration of an agricultural scientist make a difference in the life of a marginalized farmer? Can the resolute dedication required to grow one's own food survive in the dynamics of a globalized world? Can the world be really saved by taking care of the six inches of topsoil? What are the deeper cultural changes required for a truly sustainable society? The book {signs off) with some of these questions to which complete answers are not yet available and invites the readers to carry the thought process further and farther. Greening the Grey is indeed an inexorable requirement for a changing world. For a green future, we must find the right technologies and be guided by the right ideas and values.

Yes, we need dedicated people; we need to take care of the 6 inches of topsoil; we need deeper cultural changes – we need answers to other questions, including technologies, ideas and values. But I'm interested more in the "visionary inspiration of an agricultural scientist" that refers to William Dar's achievements and astonishments being the unprecedented Servant Leader of ICRISAT for the last 15 years.

To telescope the time that I call The William Dar Years of ICRISAT, 2000-2014, the African and Asian farmers' yields rose, their profits went up, and their hopes ascended with the demonstrated potential of the ICRISAT & partners' strategy called Inclusive Market-Oriented Development (IMOD), where IMOD liberates the poor farm producers from the stranglehold of the merchants and are free to become their own traders and enjoy the chain of values from production to marketing to consumption.

I've written 111 essays of a minimum 1,000 words about IMOD since 2010 (visit my dedicated blog iCRiSAT Watch, blogspot.com), but it's only today that I realize:

IMOD turns the market economy upside down.

Now, what is a market economy that I should talk like that? We go to the experts:

"Market economies work on the assumption that market forces, such as supply and demand, are the best determinants of what is right for a nation's well-being. These economies rarely engage in government interventions such as price fixing, license quotas and industry subsidizations" (investopedia.com).

"(A market economy is one) in which scarce resources are all (or nearly all) allocated by the interplay of supply and demand in free markets, largely unhampered by government rationing, price-fixing or other coercive interference" (auburn.edu).

"(A market economy is a) free market system in which decisions regarding resource allocation, production, and consumption, and price levels and competition, are made by the collective actions of individuals or organizations seeking their own advantage" (businessdictionary.com).

Largely with no government intervention. In other words, in a market economy, the market is free, that is to say, everyone for oneself and so competition can be fierce, and the big fishes swallow the little fries. Fair enough, I think, given management expertise, technologies, economies of scale, promotion. What is not fair is that in a market economy, it is the non-investing and non-laboring merchants who dictate the prices and, therefore, the profits of the producers.

In contrast, under the inclusive market concept of IMOD, the producers themselves become the merchants and, therefore, dictate the prices and, therefore, the profits of the producers!

Here, the producers are the ones actively seeking their own advantage. That is what I call inclusive market capitalism. (For more details, see my essay, "Whose inclusive capitalism? Our poor are poor out of our poor thinking," 16 February 2015, Law of the Empty Head, blogspot.com).

Is Inanglupa into this? According to the February 2015 issue of its newsletter of the same name, Inanglupa as movement now has a 9-point agenda that I summarized as follows in an earlier blog (see my "Inanglupa's War on Poverty. My war on the poverty of aggie reports," 19 February 2015, Science Making Sense, blogspot.com):

(1)  Celebrating International Year of Soils 2015

(2)  Congressional conferences for legislators to appreciate agriculture

(3)  Knowledge delivery systems via cellphones and tablets

(4)  Soil health mapping nationwide

(5)  Upgrading crop varieties & livestock breeds

(6)  Capacity-building for Food Security Warriors (trainors)

(7)  Scholarships for children of poor farmers

(8)  Marketing presentations for Inanglupa for funding support

(9)  Dictionary for Science and Media Partnership

I don't see there where the IMOD will be an active ingredient in the concoction for strengthening the muscles of Philippine agriculture, so I'm going to insist on my idea of the Super Coops.

I am proposing a cooperative arm of Inanglupa, as a practical means to implement the IMOD strategy. I am thinking of what I call Super Coops, each one of which is endowed with a board of directors who represent partners of development in society such as the public (local government), private (philanthropists, businessmen, investors), professionals (scientists, entrepreneurs), preachers (priests, pastors), populace (NGOs and POs), and peasants (farmers). I have already written much about the Super Coops; see for instance my essay, "The Coop Crusader. A million-dollar challenge to CGIAR" (13 January 2014, A Magazine Called Love, blogspot.com and "1 million Google+ views! Facebook for great friends, Google+ for great notions?" 17 September 2014, A Magazine Called Love, blogspot.com). The Super Coops will be the ones who will supply the farmers with inputs, including credit, supervise the farming up to and including harvesting, and do all the marketing to direct buyers, not via middlemen, so that the farmers can profit from their labors. It is the middlemen who rob the poor to become richer and richer still.

Borrowing from William Dar, the mantra of inclusive market capitalism should be, "Sense with a human face." Sense, as in science, as in folk wisdom.

Profit is too good to leave to the profiteers. Wealth is too good to leave to the rich if they become richer still at the expense of the poor!