After graduating from the
Indian Institute of Technology in
Kharagpur, I concentrated my
graduate and doctoral studies on
fertilizer at the Georgia Institute
of Technology.
I was naturally drawn to IFDC
because of its global focus on
fertilizer to strengthen food
production. My initial interview
with IFDC’s founding managing
director, Dr. Don McCune, was
unforgettable. “Are you sure you
want to move to a small town in
Alabama?” he asked. I explained
that the organization and I had
a mutual goal: using research to
make a difference in people’s lives.
first few years, I focused on new
methods to turn phosphorus ores
into affordable fertilizers accessible
by smallholder farmers. I am
blessed with a long and fulfilling
career alongside researchers,
scientists and many others who
make IFDC’s efforts possible.
In 1978, I began working for IFDC
as a chemical engineer. During my
After nearly four decades with the
organization, I still hold the same
respect for our staff and mission as
I did the first day I walked through
the door.
Today, with fertilizer at IFDC’s
core, the organization addresses
the much broader context of
agricultural and economic
development. As our scope
progressed, I learned important
lessons about development from
our employees, our collaborators
and our beneficiaries. The bottom
line: In order to be truly effective,
agricultural development must be
inclusive, collaborative, creative and
forward-thinking.
LESSONS BEYOND
THE CLASSROOM
LISTEN TO OUR BENEFICIARIES
The world’s 500 million small farms
are vital in producing food for a
population expected to grow to
9.6 billion by 2050. As researchers,
we ask, “How can we help farmers
grow more food under increasingly
challenging conditions?” But we
must remember these farmers have
been working their land longer
than we have been developing
new technology. They know
the solutions but often lack the
necessary tools and resources.
We must ask: What can we learn
from listening to the farmer?
IN ORDER TO BE TRULY EFFECTIVE,
AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
MUST BE INCLUSIVE, COLLABORATIVE,
CREATIVE AND FORWARD THINKING.”
Farmers are incredible entrepreneurs.
They adopt new technology only
if it makes economic sense. When
we first introduced UDP technology
to Bangladesh, it was not widely
adopted. Why? Farmers accessed
inexpensive fertilizers that were
UREA DEEP
PLACEMENT (UDP)
“THE BOTTOM LINE:
This question was critical in
the development of urea deep
placement (UDP). In the 1960s,
Japanese farmers saw their
rice crops flourish when they
formed urea fertilizer into mud
balls and placed them a few
centimeters below the soil surface.
Our researchers utilized these
farmers’ knowledge to create urea
briquettes – the cornerstone of
UDP technology. Now rice farmers
across Africa and Asia are using
UDP to increase their income by
30 percent.
UDP utilizes 1- to 3-gram
briquettes of urea placed
5 to 7 centimeters below the
soil surface to achieve about
15 percent higher yields with
two-thirds of the fertilizer.
Having set up a healthy supply
system in Bangladesh with the
introduction of the IFDC-designed
village-level briquetting machine,
the organization spread the
technology to nearly 3 million
rice farmers in the country.
These results are replicated with
hundreds of thousands of
farmers – and counting – in
sub-Saharan Africa.