Question?

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Question?

What is the Question ?.

In the beginning there was nothing.

This is what we have been taught, it goes even further when you have a good teacher, when he tries to explain that this means that <<nothing>< means that there was not even <<nothing>>.

One might wonder, but what has theology got to do with agronomy?

At FAO, we had consultants who were trying to train us. Difficult task, most of us had not had a learning history known for its brilliance. We were agronomists, more used to shoveling pig manure than twisting words.

And here suddenly we were supposed to go out and preach the good word of productive agriculture.

Pigs are difficult to convince, but a well applied kick usually is a convincing argument. It is my duty to point out to the faithful reader who intends to breed pig that a kick with a rubber boot is likely to hurt more the kicker than the kicked pig, also, when it hurts, you have a tendency to start dancing on one leg while holding your painful foot which, on a floor made slippery by treacherous pigs, usually ends with the kicker lying down in the pig shit (shit is usually called pig manure, but when you lie in it, shit is more appropriate), and the experience is both painful, ridiculous and olfactory.

How did I end up speaking of pigs when I was intending to explain de depth of the training methods used by FAO. I will have to consult my psychiatrist again.

Better go back to the beginning of the story which is also the end.

The sentence that changed my life as a trainer is very brief and totally flat and looks like a marine gun that is not loaded:

<< what is the question >>

You are not much impressed you, rather obvious, not the kind of stuff that you can speak of for weeks and weeks on a well paid Conference tour.

Yet it was to change my life, and incidentally yours so you had better stop reading as from here.

<< What is the question >>

Should I buy new trousers or shoes?

Should I learn mathematics or biology?

Should I hold the hand of the little red haired girl from the house next block?

Should I ask for a salary increase?

Should I buy a home?

Should I leave my husband (or wife) and elope with this Franck Sinatra look alike?

Those are normal day to day, life to life, yet, at each time, it is the wrong question.

Our trainers were fighting against us to try and make us understand that we did not understand what we were speaking of.

Let us take the case, which you have read about already, of the farmer in Lubumbashi who receives 20kg of maize seeds.

What should he do?

As young agronomist it was obvious that he should and must plant the maize and be punished would he not do that. We did not even devote any time considering the options.

Options?

Why not eat the maize now, he is hungry now, tomorrow is far far away, especially when the soldiers guns are so near.

Why not sell the maize at an exorbitant cost and buy some beer crates and forget about the miseries for a week? To you it sounds human but absurd, in Lubumbashi it is not, it is an investment as you do not drink your beer alone bur share it with others. Others who might have the key to your future. Others who could be one day the armed mob that comes into your village to kill, rape steal torture and burn. A friend that day might be the best investment you ever made.

You could also envisage paying back your debts with that maize, which will allow you to make new debts?

The point of the exercise with our trainer is that we have to ask ourselves why we want to convince the farmer to use the seeds and the fertilizers.

Why waste time on such a question, of course he wants seeds and fertilizers to have more maize, have enough to eat for his family for the whole of next year;

Is that sure?

Could you think of reasons why he should not increase his production? Would you be interested enough to sit down, with a notebook, close your eyes and list all the reasons why he should not grow more maize?

I leave ten lines for you to think. After that go down ten lines

Would I be far from the mark if I state that you have not taken a sheet of paper and not made a list of the reasons why the farmer should not grow more maize?

Let us assume this to be the case.

It was the case at FAO and our trainer would now tell us that the object of the question was not to list the reasons why the farmer did not want to grow more maize, but to find out why we, the participants did not do our list.

The group would start with the trainer listing the reasons why it had not been done.

No time was a classical first answer. It is a stupid answer as we were to discover later on.

You thought the trainer was speaking garbage and this was totally useless.

You did not believe the trainer (this one is a classical in Africa).

You forgot.

Why do it, as there was no reward for doing it and no punishment for not doing it.

The question had no relevance to me as I was not intending to grow maize and had ample funds to buy food. This one is really important as it appears to be a rule that I right through life will not have any interest for problems which do not affect me directly.

If I did the list and the other participants did not do the list, I would look like a fool.

If my list was done in a haste, it would be imperfect, a good strategy to avoid being imperfect and criticized is not to do anything.

I could not think of anything to list

I had too many ideas.

I was afraid that my list would be mocked by other participants.