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NEW DELHI - It reads:   Agriculture Leadership Awards . With the eye of a teacher and a journalist, I see that India’s   Agriculture Today   Magazine online, a monthly, is in a class by itself in Asia. I would call it   The National Encourager.   I’m talking of editorial intent, not content. I’m based in Manila and when I think of our own aggie magazines in the Philippines published online or in print, that doesn’t encourage me. I see that the Agriculture Today Group is now in its 3rd year of sponsorship of the Agriculture Leadership Awards that it itself initiated and created in 2008. The Awards coincide with the annual Indian   Agriculture Leadership Summit , now one of India’s most prestigious events; EcoAgriculture says (ecoagriculture.org) the Summit is “ who’s who of India’s agriculture , agribusiness, polity, industry, government, media, development and intellectual classes coming together on a common platform to share their (views) on global ...

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...

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...

This is the Inaugural Address for the International Conference on Plant Nutrition being held 11-13 August 2010 at the Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh campus of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT. The main organizers of the conference are ICRISAT and Infinitus Agri; the theme is “Plant Nutrition for Another Green Revolution.” The Chair of the organizing committee is William Dar; the Convener is Y Durgaprasad of Infinitus Agri. The original title of the manuscript is “Soil Health and Plant Nutrition: Critical Drivers for Food Security.” William D Dar Director General, ICRISAT In this part of India, you will see first-hand the severity of the problems of plant nutrition and soil health in the tropics, and how we in the Institute strive to address them to ensure the food and nutritional security of the poor and hungry. Being experts in the area of plant nutrition, you are well aware of its intricacies and importance in sustainabl...

MANILA - Can you keep a secret? I have more than 100 of Jose Rizal secrets. My hero! By  secrets , I don't mean like Rizal's abrupt departure to Spain he and his brother  Paciano  kept secret even to the rest of the family and  Leonor Rivera , his fiancée, or that he was buried in a secret grave at the Paco Cemetery, or that he had a secret in the lamp he handed to his sister before they executed him in a very public place. Almost everyone knows those. The Rizal secrets I am about to tell you are more my discoveries than anything else. Like award-winning Filipino painter  Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo 's portrait of Rizal as a young man (he is 22 years old here), this essay is my portrait of Rizal as his own man as revealed in some aspects of his life, works and writings that have been either rejected, ignored, unnoticed, not considered, or not known by most people, including historians and Rizalists. You know, I'm sure, that Jose Rizal was executed by a firing ...