William Dar Thinks Globally, Acts Locally – That's My Secretary Of Agriculture!

I have not followed someone else's accomplishments in agricultural science and management like I have followed William Dollente Dar's since 12 years ago, in 2007, when he was in his 8th year as Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, based in India. 

How and when did I get to know Mr Dar? On 26 July 2006, I published in the American Chroniclethe article "The Wizard Of Rice," which was about former Executive Director of PhilRice Santiago R Obien, SRO. He had built, with his head & hands & heart a world-class research institute out of PhilRice in the presence of the prestigious international agricultural center called IRRI.

After that, SRO said, "Isuratmo man met ni William Dar." (Kindly write about William Dar), and I told SRO I had to interview him because I didn't know him.

So we visited Mr Dar at his residence in Quezon City – and ICRISAT publications surprised me. Even if I had not set foot on the campus of ICRISAT that was thousands of kilometers away, I knew quality output when I saw it. After all, I had been Editor in Chief of so many technical and semi-technical publications since 1975, starting with the Forest Research Institute based at UP Los Baños.

So, I came up with my first long essay on ICRISAT and on Mr Dar on 26 February 2007, I blogged "An Inconvenient Truth. William Dar, The Filipino As Global Manager," which first appeared in the American Chronicle (but since that online magazine is now extinct, you can read it in my dedicated blog icrisatwatch.blogger.com, which I created later when Mr Dar was impressed with my writing. Impressions – that dedicated blog lasted up to the end of December 2014 when Mr Dar retired as DG of ICRISAT, after 15 years of international service – there is no testimony of excellent servant leadership better than that!

So I know Mr Dar is one who thinks globally and acts locally.

Like IRRI, ICRISAT is one of the international centers of the CGIAR network, which is headquartered in France. When Mr Dar was DG, the ICRISAT logo was as it appears in the image above, with the slogan, "Science with a human face." That is another way of saying, "Science serves society."

In 2010, ICRISAT came out with the strategy called inclusive market-oriented development (IMOD). I wrote, "ICRISAT Strat. Drylands & The Economics Of The Little" (03 December 2010, iCRiSAT Watch, icrisatwatch.blogspot.com):

The new ICRISAT strat is based on the concept of inclusive market-oriented development, IMOD… (With IMOD, the) changes sought are not merely with the individual farmer, such as higher productivity for his farm… including hand-holding so that the farmer will soon stand on his own feet and, more importantly, improve his life and that of his family.

Now you know where the name of my blog comes from: Journalism for Inclusive Development, which propagates the economics of the little.

Mr Dar will be one Secretary of Agriculture who knows the economics of the poor!@517