THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN

by admin | May 1, 2024 | Uncategorized

THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN

*Monty Jones: The ‘Rice Pope’
*
(First published December 31, 2015 in several local newspapers in Sierra Leone. Republished as Monty Jones makes his transition)

Monty Jones is indisputably the greatest Sierra Leonean scientist!! Before I interviewed Prof. Monty Jones at his Special Adviser to the President & Ambassador-at-Large office at State House last week, before I did cyber-research on this most famous son of Sierra Leone , I would have stopped at that accolade; but, after listening keenly to the normally subdued Prof. Jones oozing with excitement as he gave me detailed technicalities on rice research (…on “endosperm…backcrossing…chromosomes…celsus”…and the genius of using “coconut milk” to place him, after over ten years of dogged research, into the global hall of fame as one “the greatest” ranks) , I upgraded him: Monty Jones is the greatest scientist in Africa. Hyperbole? No!!

Given the utilitarian value of Monty Jones’ science achievement for billions of Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans, I put Prof. Monty Jones on the highest of scientific pedestal on which you would find the likes of Isaac Newton, Albert Einsten, Marie Curie, Lois Pasteur, etc. The 63 year old Monty Jones, in leading the team that ‘made’ the New Rice for Africa (‘NERICA’), is pregnant with symbolisms for Africans on all continents. Do we give Monty Jones ‘godhead’? Oh no!!

The modest, humble, easily approachable Monty Jones would be horrified at those encomiums.

Veering from Catholic priesthood to ‘agricultural priesthood’

Monty Jones has always been a fervent Catholic, an uncompromising believer in the ‘Trinity’ of Jesus Christ. He was a ‘mass server’ at the St. Anthony’s Catholic church at Brookfields, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from the age of seven – till the time he entered university at about age 19. Every day, from Monday to Friday, Monty Jones and his junior brother, and three sisters, would leave their home at Kingtom in Freetown and walk the two miles to St. Anthony’s church in Brookfield at about 6a.m. At the end of the early morning Catholic mass, they would rush back home to get dressed for school not to be late for their 8a.m. call in time. They were never late. So devoted and diligent was Monty Jones in his Catholicism that the white Irish priests then were certain that with his piety the priesthood was the inexorable road for Monty Jones.

Unbeknown to the Catholic priests, a different light had sparked in Monty Jones. That was after the news vendors in Freetown, with clanging bells, screamed out the newspaper headline of the rice riot in Liberia on April 14, 1979; a year later, almost as a concomitant to that rice riot, Monty Jones was jarred to the bones by the Master-Sergeant Samuel Kanyan Doe-led bloody coup in which Liberia’s President W.R. Tolbert was bludgeoned to death in his pyjamas in the Executive Mansion. Monty Jones silently
“… resolved to study agriculture and help produce rice for my country so that what happened in Liberia would never happened in Sierra Leone”.

Monty Jones’ choice: “To destroy the world”; or “To save the world” (??!!)

After Monty Jones had completed his school-leaving GCE ‘O Level’ exams, one of the white Catholic priests closest to him at the Catholic St. Edward’s Secondary School, Father Martin, said to him: “Monty…it is almost time for you to go to Ireland to begin your training as a priest”. With his head bowed, his eyes lowered in trepidation at disappointing the ‘Reverend Father’, but, his voice steady with determination, Monty Jones told the priest he would want to become an agriculturist, not a priest. Father Martin was shocked !! ; and said to Monty Jones, “You want to destroy the world?”; and Monty Jones responded: “I want to produce enough food to save the world”. The Catholic priests felt they could change his mind – they descended on his father, asking he helped them. They failed. Finally, the Catholic priests acquiesced to Monty Jones’ decision, and prayed for him in his chosen path – as Monty Jones went to the rural-based Njala University College in Sierra Leone. The Catholic priests were ahead of their time, apparently – for that was about forty years before the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, had made a public pronouncement that ‘God is in science; science is of God….’.

Monty Jones, the Pride of Africa!!!

The New Rice for Africa (NERICA) breakthrough ‘made’ by Monty Jones at the main M’be research center of WARDA in Bouake, Cote d’Ivoire – in what he called a “TEAM partnership” with national and international scientists…. should be educative for all of Africa’s elite – led to Africa being catapulted almost overnight from relative obscurity among the international rice research and development institutes into the international limelight.

Like the signature line in the famous US TV serial, ‘Star Trek’, Monty Jones went “boldly where no man (scientist) had ever gone before….”: Dr. Jones and his team succeeded for the first time in producing fertile progenies – later dubbed NERICA – from the crossing of African rice (Oryza glaberrima), which is highly resistant to drought and local pests, but has a very low yield….AND the Asian rice (Oryza sativa), which has a very high yield per plant, but is much more sensitive to environmental conditions (which leads to increased use of pesticides).

(About 40 percent of West Africa’s 4.1 million hectares of rice is grown under upland/rain-fed conditions, and about 80 percent of this is slash-and-burn agriculture. Each crop grown after a slash-and-burn cycle produces less than the previous harvest, stressing an already fragile ecosystem, and driving up demand for rice imports.
which in turn leads to widespread “slash and burn” style farming; destroying invaluable species-rich tropical rainforests. The high-yield NERICA would not only help to reverse hunger and poverty, but, helped in conservation and preservation of rare species in West Africa’s tropical rainforests).

Crossing Africa’s Oryza glaberrima and Asia’s Oryza sativa was a formidable scientific challenge – because the two species have evolved separately over millennia and are so different that many previous attempts to cross them have failed. Using conventional breeding, as well as advanced scientific tools (‘anther culture’), the Monty Jones-led West Africa Rice Development Authority (WARDA) scientists succeeded in overcoming hybrid sterility – the main problem in crossing the species.

NERICA is a rice crop with high protein content (25% more than other rice), capable of increasing farmers’ harvests by 25 to 250 percent. NERICA’s advantage over other varieties lies in its combined characteristics of higher yields (by 50% without fertilizer and by more than 200% with fertilizer); earlier maturity (by 30–50 days earlier than farmers’ varieties); resistance to local stresses (blasts, stem borers, termites). In addition, its three-month harvest time – as opposed to the six months required by its parent species – allows African farmers to harvest NERICA rice during the annual rainy season “hunger period”. For this phenomenal achievement, Monty Jones was the first African to win the US-originated World Food Prize, the agriculture world’s own Nobel Prize . (For comparative value, of the eight Africans who have won the Nobel Prize since 1911 – Anwar Sadat; Desmond Tutu; Nelson Mandela; Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, etc, – all have been for “peace”, except Wole Soyinka in 1986 who won it for Literature. No African has won the Nobel Prize in the sciences).

Monty Jones: “First” among unequals

Dr. Jones has had many “firsts” to his credit. He was among the first agricultural scientist to understand that Africa needed to do its own research and develop technologies adapted to its specific conditions, rather than importing wholesale solutions from outside. He was also among the first to realize the value of Africa’s indigenous rice species as a rich reservoir of genes for resistance to several local stresses and to develop and apply new tools to increase the efficiency of the rice breeding program in Africa.

At a time when participatory approaches were relatively unknown in Africa, Dr. Jones introduced and promoted participatory varietal selection and community-based seed systems to accelerate NERICA varieties’ dissemination. Dr. Jones recalls that when he proposed a program to the WARDA board to cross the African and Asian rice varieties in 1991, some members thought it was “too ambitious.” Ambition for self-aggrandizement is antithetical to the strict Catholic upbringing of Monty Jones, but, he is an ambitious man for the collective good, doing Jesus-like combat to confront and attack problems which are daunting to others.

Urgent Need for Monty Jones’ “creative genius” – NERICA

Africa consumes 11.5 million tonnes of rice per year – 33.6 percent of which is imported. The Gambia imports up to 175,000 tonnes of rice annually, or approximately 70 percent of its rice needs – spending $50million on that. Sierra Leone spends about a $140million on rice imports. Africa’s population is expected to double to about 2 billion people by 2050, and the continent would need to double its food output by that time – with some countries having to triple food production. NERICA presents the best hope to help especially WEST Africa cut down its rice imports, and, even, checkmate rice political instability.

For its NERICA achievement, WARDA received several awards, including the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) King Baudouin Award in 2000; and the United Nations Award for South-South Triangular Partnership in 2006. In his supporting letter to the World Food Prize Committee, Sir Gordon Conway, chief scientific adviser for the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, wrote, “Dr. Jones’ ability to combine cutting-edge science with on-farm work ” …was unique.

To honor Dr. Jones, WARDA recently launched an annual “Dr. Monty Jones Lecture” . WARDA Director General Papa Abdoulaye Seck observes, “Dr. Monty Jones has demonstrated …that it is possible to reshape the agricultural map ….through the African creative genius.”

Dr. Jones may not look like a stereotypical scientist, but perhaps he possesses some of the eccentricity that seems to go hand in hand with scientific greatness. At a WARDA ceremony to honor him, he confessed that he used to speak to his NERICA plants, praising them for their performance.

Monty Jones professional and personal life are pregnant with symbolisms. Given his global stature, he would get well-paying jobs from China, Thailand to Europe and U.S. He has chosen to come home – to serve in President Koroma’s government. . He spoke passionately about a $2billion pre-Ebola ‘Master Agricultural Plan’, which he hopes will be re-activate for the Post-Ebola Recovery Plan, albeit, scaled down to $500,000 million by ‘donors’. For pan-Africanist, and patriotic reasons, I have resolved to popularize, even, glamourize, Monty Jones. Blessed by Catholic priests about forty years ago, the ‘rice pope’ is certain to be acknowledged shortly by Pope Francis. Monty Jones, implicitly, presents an opportunity and a challenge to President Ernest Bai Koroma, the governing APC, and all the elite in Sierra Leone – shame or glory?

~ End 🛑🛑

Prof. Monty Jones died yesterday. May his soul Rest-In-Peace.

When I wrote that article on Monty Jones in 2015, I was media adviser to former President Ernest Bai Koroma at State House. Monty Jones was appalled by my closing lines: ” Monty Jones, implicitly, presents an opportunity and a challenge to *_President Ernest Bai Koroma, the governing APC, and all the elite in Sierra Leone – shame or*_ *glory?”.

He told me that he was not at State House to “challenge” anyone.

Within a month or two after that article had been published, I left my own office on the ground floor and went to his office on the second floor of State House to congratulate Monty Jones after his name was announced as the new Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security (MAFFS). He thanked me for writing the article published on him, which he said could have influenced the President (former President Ernest Bai Koroma) in appointing him Minister.

In several audio messages, and social media postings recently, I would chide current President Maada Bio for not taking advantage of the unparalleled brilliance of Monty Jones.

In early 2019, I interviewed Monty Jones at his two storey seaview house in the gated Regimanuel Gray estate at Goderich, Freetown. I was developing a Paper for the first agriculture minister in the Bio presidency, Joseph Ndanemah. In that Paper, I recorded some of the experiences and advices of Monty Jones – his giving direct cash to female farmers to encourage their productivity when he was agriculture minister; his circumventing the cumbersome bureaucracy in the agriculture ministry; and the contacts he had made to raise billions of dollars for agriculture in Sierra Leone during the years he was agriculture minister between 2016 and 2018

I shared that Paper with Joe Ndanemah as Minister; Sam-King Koinhima Brima, as deputy agriculture minister; and several of the directors of the agriculture ministry. I advocated that the agriculture ministry should be transformed from a ministry into a private-public-
partnership agency, after research. None of them got back to me.

Sadly, the Bio presidency claims to have Human Capital Development as its major platform, but my experience so far with some of the ministers, and senior aides of the President at State House gives me the impression that they can hardly fathom what Human Capital Development is all about….

I doubt whether 80% of the governing elite in this SLPP government would have bothered to read to this point. Is the new agriculture minister going to call me?

Has he called Melvin Foday Kamara, the indigenous Sierra Leone-based technology genius, with his innovations that would catalyze rapid success for the FEED SALONE programme of the President?

I pause,
Oswald Hanciles, The Guru
+232-79-545715

April 30, 2024

21:33 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

SIERRA LEONE, AFRICA AND THE WORLD HAVE LOST AN INIMITABLE TRAILBLAZER : REST IN PEACE, PROFESSOR MONTY JONES

by admin | May 1, 2024 | Uncategorized

By Kabs Kanu

Unbelievable. One of the nicest and most humble souls God has ever created, PROFESSOR MONTY JONES, passed away on Sunday. I shivered in shock and disbelief when I was called and told.

I worked with him in the last government where he was Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. He was an angel .

He was one of the most internationally famous Africans ever born. He discovered the genetic process to create new rice for Africa ( NERICA ) . He became the first African ever to be awarded the World Food Prize for this discovery.

He loved me and my late buddy Ambassador Foday Mansaray so much that whenever he came for the UN General Assembly in New York, it was a pleasant moment for us. He was like the uncle you always wanted for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Professor Monty Jones was good at listening more than talking. He was always affirming and upbuilding others.

Professor Monty Jones towered like a mighty colossus over all through the hallways of the UN. Presidents, ministers , ambassadors and other diplomats wanted to shake the hands of the man who created new rice for Africa , but he remained an impeccable model of modesty and humility.

The world has lost a true gem and machine of international progress and advancement. He brought tremendous pride to Africa and Sierra Leone and his name will forever resonate throughout the halls of reknown of world history.

May God grant eternal bliss to his gentle soul.