Visibility for value.
Short-term success for long-term contribution.
A content creator may earn more than a professor.
A trader may earn more than an agricultural scientist.
But no nation—and no civilization—has ever prospered without research.
Improved crop varieties, climate-smart farming, vaccines, antibiotics, drought-resistant seeds, sustainable livestock systems, and food innovations all began with researchers asking difficult questions long before anyone applauded.
A country that neglects its researchers today will depend on someone else's innovations tomorrow.
This is why the Global NARS Consortium (GNC), facilitated by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research and Innovation (GFAiR), is so important.
Around the world, thousands of scientists work in National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS)—public research institutes, universities, extension services, and innovation organizations dedicated to solving the challenges that matter most: food security, nutrition, climate resilience, biodiversity, sustainable agriculture, and rural livelihoods.
These researchers are developing the crops that withstand drought.
They are identifying biological alternatives to harmful pesticides.
They are conserving forgotten and underutilized foods.
They are helping farmers adapt to climate change.
They are generating the evidence that informs better agricultural policies.
Yet much of this work remains invisible.
The Global NARS Consortium exists to change that.
It brings together national agricultural research systems from every region, creating a global community that shares knowledge, strengthens capacity, promotes South–South collaboration, and ensures that scientific solutions developed in one country can benefit many others.
The university was never built as a money-making machine.
It was built to preserve knowledge, test ideas, challenge assumptions, and prepare society for the future.
Likewise, public agricultural research was never created to maximise profits.
It exists because hunger, climate change, degraded soils, emerging pests and diseases, malnutrition, and biodiversity loss cannot be solved by markets alone.
No genuine researcher begins a PhD because it is the fastest path to wealth.
Everyone knows easier roads.
Business.
Finance.
Politics.
Entertainment.
Instead, researchers choose laboratories, libraries, experimental farms, field stations, hospitals, archives, and remote rural communities.
They accept failed experiments.
Rejected papers.
Uncertain funding.
Long seasons of patient work.
Years before discoveries become solutions.
Why?
Because some responsibilities are greater than a salary.
Gregor Mendel quietly planted peas. The world later called it genetics.
Marie Curie persevered through hardship. Her discoveries transformed science and medicine.
Norman Borlaug developed improved wheat varieties that helped prevent famine and saved millions of lives.
Jonas Salk refused to patent the polio vaccine. When asked who owned it, he replied:
"The people."
That is research at its best.
Agricultural research has transformed humanity in similar ways.
Countless scientists working in national research institutes have developed improved crop varieties, sustainable farming practices, better livestock systems, and innovations that feed billions of people—often without their names ever becoming widely known.
The Global NARS Consortium exists to ensure these researchers are no longer working in isolation.
It connects institutions, accelerates collaboration, and amplifies the collective impact of public agricultural research worldwide.
Knowledge, however, also carries responsibility.
Science can heal or harm.
It can restore ecosystems or destroy them.
It can strengthen communities or deepen inequality.
The question has never been whether researchers deserve to earn well.
They do.
They deserve competitive salaries, well-equipped laboratories, reliable funding, modern infrastructure, international collaboration, and public respect.
But society must remember that knowledge is a public good before it becomes an economic asset.
Governments must remember this too.
Investing in National Agricultural Research Systems is not charity.
It is an investment in national resilience.
When research is neglected, countries eventually pay through imported technologies, declining agricultural productivity, food insecurity, climate vulnerability, weak evidence for policymaking, brain drain, and lost opportunities for innovation.
The Global NARS Consortium, under the leadership of GFAiR, represents a shared commitment to prevent that future.
Because no single country can solve tomorrow's agricultural challenges alone.
But together, through stronger National Agricultural Research Systems connected by the Global NARS Consortium, the world's researchers can generate the knowledge, innovation, and partnerships needed to build sustainable, resilient, and equitable agrifood systems for generations to come.
(Adapted from: What Many Don’t Know: No Genuine Researcher Entered the University to Become Rich - Wadzani Dauda, PhD, D.D.)
No comments:
Post a Comment