Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug about innovation...

Nobel Peace Price laureate Norman Borlaug had some relevant lessons to get innovations adopted:

1. Feed Everyone (innovations that work for small and larger farms)

2. Policy Matters: "Government policy should be sensible, supportive and never hinder the farmer’s will to produce more".

3. Feed the Plants: "To feed the people first feed the soils, ... supporting high production plants".

4. Demonstrate, Demonstrate, Demonstrate: "... Farmers do not need to be told … but they do need to see".

5. Make a Profit: "... To succeed on a grand scale a plant should be profitable enough to double the family income. This is true among the hungry and especially among the poor".

6. Circumvent Entrenched Interests: "Recruit farmers and young scientists to the cause, then leave it to them to battle apathy, anger and umbrage, among their own officials. Aroused rural awareness is a force more powerful than foreign scientists or even local functionaries".

There is a steady flow relevant lessons learned from introduction of innovations; some of these, from Nobel Peace Price laureate Norman Borlaug are highly relevant to how PLUS-Kenya works:

1. Feed Everyone: "Opt to feed the whole population, not just the hungry. That way every citizen has a stake in overcoming the inevitable obstacles". PLUS-Kenya promotes innovations to conserve soil and water for a wide variety of stakeholders; small and large and small farmers, CBO, NGO, local and national government and private sector: any organizations and sectors affecting land and water resources including WATSAN, agriculture, roads. This is to involve a diversity and large numbers of stakeholder.

2. Policy Matters: "Government policy should be sensible, supportive and never hinder the farmer’s will to produce more". Government support is very important for new technology to take root and expand; government policies that are contrary to farmer or other user needs often exist due to ignorant promotion of inappropriate technologies. TVNI often encounters this problem, when introducing Vetiver Systems (an alternative and superior technology).

3. Feed the Plants: "To feed the people first feed the soils, make them capable of supporting high production plants". Here Borlaug was referring to raising soil fertility through increased fertilizer use (frequently under irrigated conditions). PLUS-Kenya promotes technology that provides the means of improving soil moisture and the retention of plant nutrients. At this time of climate change and increased pressure on land the need for better soil moisture management, retention of rainfall, and optimizing fertilizer impact on crop yields is essential and requires technologies such as Vetiver Systems to be widely adopted.

4. Demonstrate, Demonstrate, Demonstrate: "Work where everyone can see your results and judge for themselves. Farmers do not need to be told … but they do need to see". That touches on PLUS-Kenya’s core values: End-users should see the evidence for themselves, and be able to demonstrate and upscale it in their professional or local communities. For example, although difficult to double incomes, Vetiver System came close to doing that: lifting crop yields significantly and visibly, and helping water sources regain their permanence, that was so visible that its adoption was expanded on large scale in western Ethiopia; in some cases of drought conditions crops would have not survived without Vetiver hedgerows.

5. Make a Profit: "When something makes a profit people will adopt change. To succeed on a grand scale a plant should be profitable enough to double the family income. This is true among the hungry and especially among the poor". This must be as true for the innovations promoted by PLUS-Kenya as it was for Norman Borlaug’s improved wheat. There are some good examples where the private sector is effectively promoting innovations related to land and water resources, particularly in the engineering and water sectors. Even in agriculture we could consider using fertilizer companies and small rural retailers as a means to promote soil and water conservation to farmers (since better soil protection and improved soil moisture would result in better plant response to fertilizer, more reliable and less risky crop production in drought years, resulting in higher demand and profit for both farmers and fertilizer salesmen). Also here one of PLUS-Kenya’s core values is relevant: Economic Incentives for adoption of innovations have to be significant for PLUS-Kenya’s end-users who include not only a diversity of farmers but also water polluting communities and industries, water providers, financiers, decision makers and implementers of civil works like roads, dams and dikes, etc.

6. Circumvent Entrenched Interests: "Recruit farmers and young scientists to the cause, then leave it to them to battle apathy, anger and umbrage, among their own officials. Aroused rural awareness is a force more powerful than foreign scientists or even local functionaries". Borlaug used poorly educated teenagers to scare the birds away, then he trained them to carry out the intricate and delicate task of hand pollinating wheat, not just a few but thousands of plants. He would not have achieved the results that he did without these young and “untrained” bird boys. On some countries we can see the same, when school children are leading the introduction of innovations to their communities. We see farmers in India and Ethiopia (and Kenya) whose knowledge and enthusiasm about certain innovations eclipses that of trained graduates and other government functionaries. In Kenya, policies are challenged to address these facts on land and water resources. Annually… - floods and landslides affect hundreds of thousands, and kill dozens (many children) - floods cost 71 million US$ (5.3 billion KSh) - droughts cost 140 million US$ (11 billion Ksh) - together, floods and droughts cost us 210 million US$ (16 billion Ksh) or more than 2% of GDP - for farmers, regular supply of water, and soil moisture retention are among the toughest challenges; with high levels of soil and water runoff, the economic return of fertilizer is relatively low - the value of soil loss in Kenya is 3-4 times its annual income from tourism! In Nyando basin alone the annual soil loss is at a cost of 43 million US$ (28 billion KSh) - dams are silting up - for both urban & rural poor water supply in sufficient quality and quantity is challenge no.1; it affects health (70% of hospital visits unnecessary if people had access to clean water!) and education.