Food sufficiency, environment conservation, local autonomy, social equity—these are urgent, bedrock concerns today. These challenges are addressed by governments, development agencies, multilateral organizations, and other institutions, but we have also seen that the most meaningful, impactful actions often come from the ground, from local communities and the people themselves.

An inspiring example is the story of fifty-one-year-old Eugenio Lemos of Timor-Leste. Lemos lived through the turbulent years of his country’s struggle for independence, that saw the Indonesian invasion and the bitter civil war that marked the country’s emergence as a fully independent nation in 2002. Such difficult beginnings devastated the economy, leaving 40% of the country’s mostly rural population living below the poverty line. For Lemos, born to a family of farmers, it was a tragic time as well. He lost his father and siblings during the war and had to help his mother in farm work at an early age. It would be his life.

He studied agriculture in a local university and took up such activities as starting a group to promote organic farming. In 1999, an Australian permaculture trainer, who was in Timor-Leste to train farmers in sustainable agriculture, introduced Lemos to permaculture, a holistic system for creating and managing sustainable agrosystems. It was not simply about transferring technologies but the cultivation of an ethos of responsible relations to nature and people, expressed in the words “earth care, people care, and fair share.” Lemos saw that many elements of this system were already present in traditional Timorese culture and he resolved that this was something he would devote himself to promoting among his people.

In 2001, Lemos established Permakultura Timor-Lorosa’e (Permatil). It has three main programs. A Youth Training Program that organizes three-day camps for youth seventeen years old or older, involving learning-and-fun activities in water and natural resource management, farming, aquaculture, and agroforestry. (Another camp for kids twelve to sixteen was later added, with simpler activities like gardening and preparing organic food.)

A School Garden Program implemented in public primary schools in which students tend vegetable gardens and learn composting, natural pest control, seed selection, and other skills. There is also a Water and Natural Resource Management Program that promotes “rainwater harvesting” by building ponds, swales, and terraces that store water, recharge aquifers, and regenerate springs.

Since 2008, the youth camp has trained more than 5,000 youth across the country. The School Garden  Program  has  been  established  in  more  than  250 schools and, since 2015, has been integrated in the national  public  school  curriculum.  Permatil’s  Water  and  Natural  Resource Management Program has been introduced in all thirteen administrative districts of Timor-Leste. More than 1,000 water collection ponds have been built and 300 springs revived, benefitting over 400,000 residents or almost a third of the country’s population.

Charismatic, Lemos works with people from all walks of life—they are drawn by his open, humble, down-to-earth manner. Very much in character, he is an activist, a song writer and a singer who uses his songs as a medium to communicate the social issues he cares about. More than just about methods and techniques, Lemos promotes a whole way of looking at nature and people, particularly among the young. Taking time off for a scholarship in 2008-2010, Lemos earned a master’s degree in community development in Australia. What defines him today is that he is proud and respectful of his culture, grounded in local realities, and draws deeply from traditional knowledge what he finds essential to living. He insists, for instance, that what is needed is not simply “food security” or access to food (often commercial and imported) but “food sovereignty,” the country’s capacity to produce its own food, placing the premium on what is local, natural, and nutritious. Still, Lemos is mindful that what he is doing has lessons beyond Timor-Leste. He says, “My message to people—especially leaders of every country—is, think wisely. Don’t think only of how to create benefits for business without thinking about the impact on the environment. As world citizens, everything we do has an impact on others. We have one atmosphere, one water, one air.”

In electing Eugenio Lemos to receive the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his indomitable spirit in uplifting the lives of local communities, his vision and passion in integrating local and indigenous cultures in his advocacy for the care of the environment and the well-being of people; and for being truly a man of and for his people, and thus for the world as well.

First of all, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for electing me to receive Asia’s premier prize and highest honor, the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

As we all know, man’s impact on our Mother Earth is at a critical crossroads, with many factors severely damaging our natural resources – our agricultural and terrestrial lands, and our marine and aquatic resources. Because of this, the food sovereignty of every country is currently under threat.

For many generations, humans have plundered Mother Earth’s resources in the name of capitalism, and in doing so we have robbed future generations – our own children and children’s children – of water security, of food sovereignty and of a life free of climate change.

The future that they face – a life filled with uncertainty, dangers, threats of displacement and extreme weather events is something I feel extremely concerned about. It is something that we all should be concerned about.

With today’s geopolitics of the current wars between Ukraine and Russia, and Israel and Palestine worsening the global food production and availability, many millions of people will go hungry and suffer from lack of access to quality, nutritious food and clean drinking water.

But through environmental advocacy, skills training and awareness-raising of ecosystem literacy, permaculture and traditional knowledge, we can build new generations of citizens who have the understanding, capacity, and confidence to effectively tackle climate change and its effects.

Young people of the world are key to achieving sustainable development and restoring the long-term viability of our environment across the globe. It is essential that all young people receive equal access to quality education and training, to social justice and quality health services, to protection from violence and abuse and to opportunities for employment and meaningful participation in society.

So, I ask all of us to make a commitment, to join forces and to act together in stopping the causes of climate change and ecosystem destruction. The time to mobilize everyone especially the youth of the world to rise above the environmental challenges ahead is now.

Permatil (Timor-Leste) and Permatil Global are committed to engaging all youths in the practice of permaculture through the PermaYouth in Action movement. This will grow new environmental leaders and equip youth to share the knowledge and skills with their communities. Knowledge and skills to rehabilitate environments, become water, seed, land and food resilient and implement climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

The impact we can create together will not only restore local environments and offer sustainable local livelihoods but will multiply and spread far and wide – increasing the wellbeing of our communities, entire countries, and our planet, now and into the future.

The change begins with all of us. The time to do so is now.

Permaculture. Everyone. Everywhere.

Obrigado barak!

Being an archipelago in the heart of the Coral Triangle, the global center of marine diversity, it is not surprising that the Philippines is one of the top fish-producing countries in the world. Yet, the tragic irony is that fishermen—particularly municipal fishermen, who constitute 85% of over 1.6 million people employed in the fisheries sector—are among the poorest labor groups in the country. Traditionally unorganized, small-scale, with meager assets and access to outside assistance, they have suffered over past decades as their life-sustaining resource, the marine environment, is severely degraded.

One 53-year old fisherman has broken the mold by leading his community in preserving the coastal environment that has been the life-source for generations of fishing families. He is ROBERTO BALLON (fondly called “Ka Dodoy”). His Visayan parents migrated to the village of Concepcion in Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibugay province in Mindanao, when he was in his teens. KA DODOY knew the realities of diminishing fish harvests in once rich fishing grounds; how his father, like other village fishermen, would spend long hours at sea and come home earning barely enough to buy rice for the family. Poverty prevented KA DODOY from going to college; so he knew he would have to “go back to the sea.” Having started his own family, he had to take command of the situation he was in.

In 1986, DODOY and thirty other fishermen started Kapunungan sa Gagmay’ng Mangingisda sa Concepcion (KGMC), or Association of Small Fisherfolk of Concepcion. Seeing how rampant fishpond conversion was, and how the abandonment of these fishponds when the business collapsed had destroyed the mangrove forests, KGMC decided to focus on mangrove reforestation. With little help and meager returns (since the benefits of reforestation are not felt quickly), the association saw its members dwindle to just three but KA DODOY, the association chairman, persisted.

Their perseverance attracted government support, reaching a milestone in early 2000, when the fishermen were granted tenurial rights to the reforested land under a government forestry co-management program. The fifty hectares they replanted by 1994 had expanded to five-hundred hectares of mangrove forests in 2015. What was once a desert of abandoned fishponds is now an expanse of healthy mangrove forests rich with marine and terrestrial life. Fish catch has improved dramatically from 1.5 kg per fishing trip of eight hours to as much as    7.0 kg in three-to-five hours of fishing. The improvement in the fisherfolk’s quality of life has been evident in their ability to buy a boat engine or simple household appliances and send their children to school.

From a handful members in the 1980s, KGMC now has a membership of 320 households. The group’s success led to other projects. In partnership with the municipal government, KGMC members were deputized to conduct the local Bantay Dagat or Sea Patrol volunteer program, aimed at protecting municipal waters from illegal fishing and mangrove logging. They have also attracted partnerships with development institutions in livelihood and social enterprise projects like oyster production, shell and crab culture, and seaweed farming. KGMC’s initiatives have been replicated in other towns in Zamboanga Sibugay and even beyond. These and other changes have given new life to Kabasalan, now regarded as the seafood capital of the province and an ecotourism destination.

The key mover in this transformation is DODOY BALLON. His exceptional dedication to serving others and self-sacrificing leadership that puts the group’s interest before his own have transformed his community. When KA DODOY and his fellow fishermen were starting out and it seemed like there was no one to help them but themselves, he said: “Our families depend on the sea for our survival, not on politicians or other people, so it is only right that we make its protection our priority.”

In electing ROBERTO BALLON to receive the 2021 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his inspiring determination in leading his fellow fisherfolk to revive a dying fishing industry by creating a sustainable marine environment for this generation and generations to come, and his shining example of how everyday acts of heroism can truly be extraordinary and transformative.

“Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start.” These words from Pope Francis in his encyclical letter – Laudato Si exemplify the choices I made and continue to make, as an ordinary fisherman – to dauntlessly see riches from ridges to reef and thereby choose to rise, to choose what is good, and to choose to make a new start. By God’s grace, standing before you at this moment, remind me of these humble choices that yielded fruits and even earned international recognition.

I am profoundly honored and pleased to be chosen as one of the Awardees of the most prestigious award in Asia, in honor of the legacy of the late Pres. Ramon Magsaysay. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I will be counted among the array of great community leaders to be recognized by the Foundation.

As a simple fisherman, I only have one desire for the community that makes me do what I have been doing: to offer myself to help provide a better environment, sustainable livelihood, and an empowered community to realize our vision and mission in life – that is, to have 3,8…agahan, tanghalian at hapunan, tatlong kainan in English, breakfast, lunch, dinner, so 3 eat.  If we have 3 eat, 3 meals in a day, I believe we would be content.

But more than this, I see a hunger that not even three full meals could satisfy.  Day after day, I see the need to strive for progress, to live a harmonious life propelled by a sustainable and equitable co-existence in the coastal vicinities of Zamboanga Sibugay. This has always been our aspiration as municipal fisherfolks together with our government and other stakeholders in preparation for a better and productive environment for the next generations.

Because of this Award, I am exceedingly grateful and hopeful that this platform could be a great mechanism to help our poor fisherfolk sector attain more leverage to sustainably manage our coastal resources. Through this stage, I am advocating my fellow fisherfolk in the entire archipelago that this initiative will not stop with this award but will serve as a vehicle to sail smoothly and navigate towards sustaining our natural wealth.

What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? Asks Pope Francis using the lenses of the same encyclical. Today and in the years to come, we respond to the daunting task of making the earth truly a home. To my fellow fisherfolks, let us help our government by keeping our coastal habitat protected and sustainably utilized.

1. Let us support our fishery program while being faithful to the laws and local policies that augment coastal measures in our pursuit for better production and environmental preservation.
2. Let us take heed of the environmental cries that continue to haunt us because of sheer apathy and personal interest resulting in environmental abuses which badly affects the poor.
3. Let us take the step of empathy because progress entails sacrifices and unity. If our government fails, we also fail. If our government succeeds we also succeed. However, let us also be vigilant to the developments that are offered…we don’t just exist and be lavished with what the world can render us but take the proactive step instead and see for ourselves what we can render to those who need us most.
4. Let us not hook our destiny with the ways and means that our government has for us. We are capable of shaping our own. We break the silence of each dawn with a noble purpose. Ours is not a passive waiting for whatever the government can do for us. Ours is the call to be proactive and thus help our government achieve its goal for the common good.

My fellow fisherfolk, it is not our government leaders who brave the waves and the storms to earn a good catch from the seas. While others just stand at the stretches of the coast, we find ourselves delving into the deep because we are confronted with much deeper and greater responsibilities.

This is where we earn a living. But beyond quenching this human need is the vocation to give life to our natural resources, to see life from ridges to reefs, and eventually bring life to our common home.

To our family in the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, I am deeply thankful that you have recognized, if I may say, the collaborative efforts that empowered poor fisher folks like us, and thus take our initiatives in a larger arena which now garners greater consciousness for the protection and conservation of our coastal environment. Thank you for making us realize that even the smallest efforts that we exert for such advocacies are not futile and never stupid. Convinced that we shall reap more bountiful harvests, we are able to see that all these are appropriate actions – most valid and ethical contributions that we can offer to our future generations.

Let me take this chance to render my sincerest appreciation to our community development workers on the ground who have always been my company even when the sail goes rough and perilous.

1. To the Local Government Unit of Kabasalan who has given support since 2001 in the protection of our municipal waters until now. The Office of the Municipal Agriculture despite having the least fund allocation never ceased to stir collaborative efforts with our fisherfolk organization and for cementing strong policy support in the Integrated Coastal Resource Management.
2. To the Provincial Government of Sibugay, national government agencies like the Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the DA – Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the Department of Science and Technology, the Philippine National Police, and the Coast Guard for pushing us to reach our potentials and for supporting us in one way or another.
3. To all our able partners who have been my constant support, foremost to the Xavier Agriculture Extension Service Foundation of Ipil that honed my skill and talent in community development and coastal resource management.
4. To the various   Non-Government Organizations namely, the Forest Foundation Philippines formerly PTFCF, Condura, the Peace and Equity Foundation, AADC, AsiaDHRRA, RARE Philippines, PAKISAMA, HEED Foundation that funded our mangrove reforestation projects, strengthened our association, developed our leaders, and provided us functional technical knowledge and skills.
5. To the various academic institutions, the Ateneo de Zamboanga -School of Medicine, Xavier University, Ateneo de Cagayan, MSU – Naawan, UP Manila for providing us scientific results as basis for our local legislation and ongoing programs.
6. To my immediate community of Balungis, Concepcion, Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibugay, the KGMC and COMFAS for always believing in me, for tirelessly supporting me.
7. To our  Local  Church in the Diocese of Ipil for raising in me profound consciousness to be faithful despite our very poor condition, for molding my values since my youth to be a grateful and responsible steward of God’s creation.
8. Lastly and most importantly, I would like to thank my family — my parents and my siblings who raised me and taught to me fulfill my responsibilities as a leader; to my wife, Rebecca, and my eleven children, who are my source of joy and who give me strength and give light to the path I take every day.

Let me say it again, no matter how simple we are, we are capable of rising above our weaknesses, capable of choosing what is good, and ever capable of making a new start. May this crusade continue until we can achieve our goal of becoming successful and progressive Filipinos in the entire nation and to the whole of Asia and the world.

MABUHAY ANG MANGINGISDANG PILIPINO! DAMO GUID NGA SALAMAT SA INYO NGA TANAN!

In Singapore, one of the world’s wealthiest economies, poverty is not as stark and visible as in much of the world, but it exists for ten percent of the country’s population of 5.7 million. It is a problem that can be statistically glossed over in ways that can dull human sympathies, foster moral complacency, and obscure the fact that in the end, poverty is not a matter of numbers but of real people needing other people’s help.

Singaporean TONY TAY was born into poverty. Abandoned by his father when he was five, homeless, his mother barely surviving on transient work, TONY and a sister were put in the care of an orphanage, while two other sisters stayed with a foster family. At twelve, TONY dropped out of school, had to find food where he could, and started working at odd jobs. By sheer grit and perseverance, he slowly pulled himself out of poverty, started a printing business; and finally had his own home, raising his own family in modest comfort.

In the Singaporean ethos of self-reliance, he could have easily put the past behind him. And he did, until he was fifty-seven when, at his mother’s funeral, he was deeply moved by the great number of people who came to give their respects to his mother. Despite her own difficulties, she had devoted herself to charity work with the Canossian Sisters. Inspired, TONY and his wife began their share of doing good for others—collecting unsold bread and vegetables from the market and bringing these to the Canossian convent to be given to the needy. Enlisting family and friends, they began to cook what they had gathered in their home kitchen, delivering packed meals to the poor and elderly.

Their “one hot meal revolution” had begun. In 2003, TONY organized “Willing Hearts,” a fully volunteer-based, non-profit organization that distributes hot, packed meals daily to the needy. Starting with just eleven volunteers and distributing three hundred meals daily, Willing Hearts now cooks six thousand meals every day, which are delivered to forty distribution points in Singapore. It operates 365 days a year and has some three hundred regular volunteers, operating out of a facility in a public community center. Their beneficiaries are neglected and abandoned elderly and persons with disabilities, the sick, children of single-parent households, low-income families, and migrant workers.

Supported with donations in cash but mostly in kind, its facility operates daily from 4:30 AM to 3:30 PM as volunteers collect, prepare, cook, pack, and deliver meals in a systematic cycle of work that respects the people they serve by seeing to the quality and quantity of the food, observing food safety, and segregating Muslim and non-Muslim meals. Willing Hearts has not missed a single day of food-giving since it started fourteen years ago.

Willing Hearts has extended its services to optical and dental care, “So people can better enjoy their food,” TONY says, expressing a typically Singaporean love for food. But it is not just about food. What gratifies TONY is how the simple sharing of food has fostered the spirit of volunteerism: taxi drivers have volunteered to deliver food packs; parents bring their children to the group’s kitchen to help; volunteers and their families are nurtured by their Willing Hearts experience in the virtues of service, empathy, and kindness.

Today, TONY participates in all aspects of the work, all day every day. He has no grand vision of what he is doing, except that people must love one another and that “God will provide.” He often speaks of Willing Hearts as a way of being part of one family, one village—a poignant statement from one who did not have much of a family growing up. He says: “We are just sharing, sharing all that we have in life to make a better society.”

In electing TONY TAY to receive the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his quiet, abiding dedication to a simple act of kindness—sharing food with others—and his inspiring influence in enlarging this simple kindness into a collective, inclusive, vibrant volunteer movement that is nurturing the lives of many in Singapore.

Thank you for the award. It is a great honor.

Willing Hearts started with one word—yes. Yes to the Canossian sisters to help them collect extra bread that were not sold for the day from a bakery. Yes to distribute the rest of the bread to those who needed it. Yes to collect the extra vegetables from the wholesalers. Yes to my wife when she asked to cook for the elderly who couldn not cook for themselves. Yes to all who asked for help along the way.

And along the way, I asked for help and many said, “yes,” so Willing Hearts is a journey of many who said, “yes” to those in need.

I never thought that our work would grow so big. There were no big plans when we started. There are no big plans now. There are no big plans for the future. Just one plan: God’s plan.

There are many people to thank. I would like to thank and offer this award:

• To God: the honor and glory belongs to God for making all things possible. He has given me the strength and the courage to keep Willing Hearts going. Without God’s blessing, we would be nowhere.
• To my late mother: for being the model and the spirit behind Willing Hearts.
• To my wife: for being the pillar of support in my journey. As they say, “Behind every successful man, there is a woman.” Thank you for always being there, Mary!
• To the donors, supporters, and volunteers: for believing and supporting Willing Hearts since day one, and for being there 365 days a year, to help the needy all these years.

Lastly, thank you to everybody here for sharing this honor. I salute and give my best wishes to the other award winners.

In the Philippines, forty percent of the labor force is employed in agriculture. Yet, food insecurity continues to haunt the land, and the farmers who produce food are not only among the country’s poorest, they are also its mostly-invisible citizens. With the tools of science and a great reserve of social empathy, one remarkable individual has devoted his life to addressing these problems.

The roots of his devotion run deep. ROMULO DAVIDE was born in the mountain barrio of Colawin in Argao, Cebu province, to school teachers who raised him and his six siblings in the values of hard work, education, and community service. DAVIDE has practiced these values all his life: doing farm work as a child, working as a student laborer to help pay his way through college, scrimping to pursue his dream of getting the highest education. Growing up in a poor farming village, in a province where the common lament was that little could be harvested from small, over-cultivated, soil-exhausted farms, he drew inspiration from what his father often said, “There are no barren soils, only barren minds.” It was thus that he decided to be an agricultural scientist.

Today, with a doctorate and advanced training in the United States and Ireland, he is one of the country’s top scientists, hailed as the “Father of Plant Nematology” for his many years of teaching and groundbreaking research on nematode pests that infest, debilitate, and destroy agricultural crops. His discovery of nematode-trapping fungi (P. lilacinus and P. oxalicum) led to the development of BIOCON, the first Philippine biological control product that can be used against nematode pests attacking vegetables, banana, potato, citrus, pineapple, rice, and other crops, thus making available a practical substitute for highly toxic and expensive chemical nematicides. Without thought of personal gain, he has seen one of his discoveries commercially marketed to fight banana nematode infestation in the Philippines, Latin America, and other parts of the world.

But DAVIDE is more than just a groundbreaking laboratory scientist. Throughout his career, he has immersed himself in field extension work, as director of the National Crop Protection Center (1989-92) and in numerous extension programs of the University of the Philippines-Los Baños College of Agriculture.

In 1994, named “Outstanding Agricultural Scientist” by the Department of Agriculture, he used his award money to launch in Colawin the “Corn-based Farmer-Scientists Training Program” (FSTP). An innovative and multi-faceted program, FSTP aimed, through actual field experience and interaction with experts, to turn farmers into “farmer-scientists” who would be able to do experiments, discover effective techniques, manage the market, and increase production. Starting with seventy-four farmers in Colawin, and enlisting the support of government and academe, FSTP expanded to cover thirty-five Cebu towns and six other provinces by 2007. It proved its success when farmers were able to increase corn yields six to twelve times over, and adopted intercropping systems and animal production technologies that further increased their incomes. Recognizing this success, the national government adopted the FSTP in 2008 for countrywide implementation, with the Department of Agriculture and UP Los Baños as lead implementors and DAVIDE as program leader. Today, FSTP is being implemented in twenty provinces across the country.

Clear-minded about his goals, DAVIDE has all these years refused to be discouraged by erratic funding, bureaucratic inertia, or political interference, saying that one must learn “to walk straight even on a crooked path.” At seventy-eight, he continues to be driven by the dream that, indeed, the land can be made fertile if minds are challenged to become fertile as well.

In electing ROMULO DAVIDE to receive the 2012 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his steadfast passion in placing the power and discipline of science in the hands of Filipino farmers, who have consequently multiplied their yields, created productive farming communities, and rediscovered the dignity of their labor.

It is indeed a distinct honor and pleasure for me to attend this ceremony to humbly accept this prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award.

I share this honor with all the men and women, including my wife Clara, who work so hard with me in our programs to uplift the living conditions of our farmers, especially those in the upland communities who are still poor and hungry. . May this be our “footprints in the sands of time” and hope that the spirit and ideals of President Magsaysay guide and inspire us to continue this noble task with vigor and strength.

Looking back to my family’s humble beginnings, I could hardly believe that today I am here with you to receive this award.

Working closely with my students and research assistants, I developed the BIOCON for the biological control of nematode pests that attack the roots of many economic crops. For our banana exports alone the cost of imported chemicals to control nematode damage on roots was estimated at 200 million pesos a year, while BIOCON, now registered and patented as BIOACT, can effectively control nematodes at much lower costs. BIOACT, now manufactured in Germany with markets in Europe and other countries, is harmless to man and animals compared to highly toxic chemical nematicides.

FSTP was conceptualized to correct failures in government projects for countryside development where trained farmers remain poor since they can not adopt technologies introduced to them due to absence of funds. There is also a big gap between our R&D and extension activities. FSTP combines RD and E in one package to make farmers both farmer-scientists and extension workers.

FSTP was started in Argao in 1994 when Cebu was considered among the poorest provinces. Since then we have trained more than 30, 000 Filipino farmers, and Argaowanons are grateful that from a 5th class town before FSTP, Argao has become a 1st class town since 2006. FSTP is now being implemented as a National Program starting in 2008. With Department of Agriculture support funds, FSTP’s nationwide coverage can now reach out to our poorest farmers. Thus we have now Mangyan farmer-scientists in the mountains of Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro, and the Blaan indigenous people in the mountains of Alabel, Sarangani Province in Mindanao.

As successfully demonstrated by FSTP, small farmers can be empowered with scientific farming knowledge to produce corn for food with a surplus for sale, along with production of vegetables, fruits and livestock, increasing farmers’ income by more than 100 percent and benefiting not only their families but also their communities.

We hope more government agencies, charitable companies and friends will join us in making poor farmers improve their living conditions and produce more food for all of us Filipinos. There are stumbling blocks along the way but we must endeavor and learn to walk straight even on a crooked path. Truly, farmers are the heroes of our lands. Let us therefore recognize them with honor and dignity and support them to achieve their long desired abundant productivity and live in peace and prosperity.

In the late twentieth century, “economic development” was the world’s watchword. Finding a formula to move millions of rural workers and farmers from poverty to prosperity preoccupied newly independent nations everywhere and also the countries that sought to aid and influence them. But no magic formula was found. It seems that some aspects of rural poverty are disturbingly resistant to the insights of development experts with PhD’s. Yet, in a remote corner of southern Thailand, a farmer with a fourth-grade education has made a breakthrough. This is PRAYONG RONNARONG. 

As a boy, PRAYONG RONNARONG observed his grandfather, a revered local healer. From him, and from his parents too, PRAYONG learned the value of serving others and the respect it confers. Theirs was a world of farmers, and PRAYONG spent only a few years in school before becoming a farmer himself. Like others in Mairiang Subdistrict, he invested in rubber, a promising cash crop in the early 1960s. And, like the others, he suffered badly when rubber prices plummeted a few years later. Responding to this blow, PRAYONG became a leader. 

Instead of abandoning rubber, PRAYONG led a group of farmers to study the crisis and to react rationally. Raising capital from fellow villagers at fifty baht per share, they built a rubber-processing plant in Mairiang to produce high-quality latex for the better prices of the Bangkok market. PRAYONG was soon managing a factory that produced three tons of latex a day. He became adept at drawing lessons from other rubber producers and applying them in Mairiang. Neighboring communities began to notice Mairiang’s success and, in the early 1990s, PRAYONG helped ten of them to establish similar community-owned latex factories. By 1996, there were over one hundred in his home province. Using the community-learning process they had adopted earlier, these farmers painstakingly developed their own Thai Para Rubber Strategic Plan. And despite government rejection of the plan, they continued to base their community activities on it. 

Meanwhile, PRAYONG created a council of leaders to plan Mairiang’s future collectively. At the Mairiang Community Learning and Development Center, he and the other leaders orchestrated cooperation between the subdistrict’s rice, fruit, and rubber growers and identified other products for which Mairiang’s farmers might gain a competitive advantage: rice-flour noodles, shampoo, drinking water, and others. They scoured the country to learn the best practices of other farmers and to gather the advice of experts. In the process, they created a “master plan” for Mairiang that promoted not only community enterprises but also education, health, and welfare measures funded from the profits of these enterprises-including scholarships for the youth and a social security fund. Today some nine hundred families are its direct beneficiaries. 

The number of its indirect beneficiaries is much higher. In recent years, key elements of PRAYONG’s community-crafted master-plan approach have been adopted as part of Thailand’s economic and social development programs. They are now being applied across the country, and PRAYONG is frequently on call to explain how it is done. 

The key, he says, is to identify “a small group of like-minded people who are willing to do something” and then to support them in every way possible. Indeed, this has been PRAYONG’s role and today, at sixty-three, he continues to embrace it. Despite a certain celebrity and even trips around the world, he remains true to his roots in Mairiang, avoiding fancy hotels and other luxuries such as an automobile. “It’s not money that makes me happy but to do something I really want to do,” he says. “Developing the people comes naturally.” 

In electing PRAYONG RONNARONG to receive the 2004 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the board of trustees recognizes his leading fellow farmers in demonstrating that the model of self-reliant local enterprises, supported by active community learning, is the path to rural prosperity in Thailand.

Chairman and Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Distinguished Guests, Fellow Awardees and Dear Friends. 

It is a great honor for me, an ordinary farmer from a small community in Southern Thailand, to be named Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Community Leadership. I would like to thank you on behalf of my community members, my fellow farmers, for your recognition of what we have been doing and struggling for during the past decades to improve the quality of life of the poor and disadvantaged people in the rural areas. 

I was fortunate to be born in a Southern community, where people love learning. I inherited this spirit from my family and community. Although I finished only the 4th grade, I have been learning my whole life in what I call a “Life University.” I have been learning by doing, by interacting with other people from all walks of life. 

My environment was and still is, as most of Southern Thailand, dominantly rubber plantation. In 1969 rubber prices dropped drastically. It was the year we started to seriously search for solutions from rubber problems, which were linked to all other problems. From our small community in Mairiang, the network of people expanded to other provinces of the South, and from that day to today, 35 years of lessons learned have crystallized into a development paradigm, including a way of thinking, of acting, of valuing based on a particular view of reality, which I would like to put into four simple words: 

1. Learning. One of the most important principles I have been using during the past decade is “know yourself, know your community, know the world which has an impact on community life”. Know yourself means to be aware of what one is doing and where one is going, and why. For the community, there is a need for a learning process for all community members, so that all may be aware of themselves, of the changes happening in the society and in the world. 

2. Self-reliance. During the first period (about 30 years ago) our community struggled by itself, practically without any assistance from outside, to solve rubber problems. We got together and shared our concerns, and we realized that by so doing it was not sufficient to find solutions. We decided to go out to learn from other people and other places, and from the larger world. Three years later, we succeeded in drawing lessons learned and decided to set up a community rubber processing factory, managed, and owned by the community. That enterprise gave us confidence. We can now face any problem on our own. 

3. Freedom. Past experiences taught us that we have to rely on ourselves, make our own decisions, and use our own resources, without depending totally on others’ initiatives and resources. We learn that success is the result of our free decision, being ourselves in learning, in choosing our way of life and development. 

4. Social relationship. We realize that we need to establish relationships and collaboration with all parties. Mairiang has established relationships with other communities in the form of a network. At the local level, we have a network of rubber, fruit and rice growers. We also collaborate with the Village Foundation to develop models of community rubber factories, community health scheme, and community enterprise, and a strategic plan. All these have been well received by the government and adopted into the national policy. We have established the Mairiang Community Learning and Development Centre. Gos, NGOs, academics and people from the private sector from outside the community come to complement what we have initiated and invested with our resources. We make the main “contribution,” they provide the “counterpart.”

I am aware that this Ramon Magsaysay Award is not directed to me personally, but as a member of a community, a community leader in Thailand. I am only one small part of the network of communities which expand day by day. This precious award is the price of our common efforts and accomplishments. I will deliver this means of hope and encouragement back to all the members of Mairiang and the communities in my country, Thailand.

Rice is Asia’s staple food, the delicious grain upon which its civilizations have grown and flourished since earliest times. Over centuries, Asia’s farmers toiled to render forests into rice fields and tinkered endlessly to garner from each paddy and stalk just a little more rice. Rising populations in modern times have meant that more rice must be grown on less land, especially in China where people now number over a billion. YUAN LONGPIN, director general of the China National Hybrid Rice Research and Development Center, has confronted this urgent need. His brilliant innovations in hybridization offer hope that, in the years to come, there will always be enough rice. 

As a boy during the Japanese War, YUAN followed his father across China to Chongqing, attending one school after another. An eager learner, he earned the nickname “Questioning student.” A visit to a horticultural garden awakened in him a love for plants. He studied agriculture in college and, as a young teacher at Anjiang School of Agriculture in Hunan, began his own experiments in crop breeding. Shocked by China’s great famine of 1958-1961 and by the impoverished life of rural villagers, YUAN devoted himself to developing higher-yielding rice plants. Thwarted by flawed Soviet theories and by the Cultural Revolution, he persisted despite disappointments and risks. Quietly shifting to sounder genetic models, he began to succeed. 

Hybridization held the key to unleashing the power of heterosis-the dramatic growth spurt that follows the crossing of genetically distant parent plants. Yet hybridization on a large scale seemed beyond the reach of plant scientists. By the early 1960s, many had abandoned the search. YUAN carried on, publishing a key scientific paper in 1966. The discovery of a naturally sterile male wild-rice variety in 1970 led to a breakthrough. With the robust support of the Chinese government, YUAN now led a nationwide team of researchers to develop in 1974 the “three-line hybridization system,” capable of producing high-yield hybrid seeds on a commercial scale. Able to yield 15-20 percent more rice per hectare than the best non-hybrid varieties of the time, YUAN’s new seeds spread rapidly in China. 

As a consequence, China’s rice production rose by 47.5 percent by the 1990s, even as some five million hectares of erstwhile paddy land was shifted to cash crops such as vegetables, fruits, cotton, and rapeseed. Meanwhile, at his research center in Changsha, YUAN raced to simplify and improve his technique, achieving a higher-yielding two-line system in 1996. Today, half of China’s rice land is planted to YUAN’s hybrids. At the same time, the business of hybrid seed production is raising incomes across the countryside. 

These days YUAN is perfecting what he calls super-hybrid rice, to yield 25-30 percent more than current hybrids. “If this materializes,” he says, “we can feed 100 million more people.”

YUAN’s research center has already trained 350 scientists from twenty-five countries. His hybrid rice technology is raising hopes for food self-sufficiency in Vietnam, India, the Philippines, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and other Asian countries. All of this delights YUAN, who says, “One of my dreams is to make hybrid rice help more people in the world.” 

Lean and wiry at seventy years and still hard at work, Yuan is a man of simple ways who rides a motorcycle to the fields daily and dresses like a farmer. He has enriched the lives of millions of Chinese villagers, who revere him and call him the Father of Rice. YUAN returns the compliment. “The peasants in our country have a very rich experience in how to grow rice,” he says. “I have a lot to learn from them.” 

In electing YUAN LONGPIN to receive the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes the unique contribution of his research in rice hybridization to food security in Asia.

Your Excellency President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, members of the Magsaysay Family, distinguished guests, trustees, fellow awardees, ladies and gentlemen: 

It is my great honor and pleasure to attend this glorious ceremony to accept the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award. 

First, I would like to express my hearty thanks to the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for recognizing the important role of hybrid rice in raising food yield and for setting a high value on my work in this research field. 

The success in the development of hybrid rice is a major breakthrough in rice breeding, providing an effective approach to increase rice yield by a big margin. In recent years, about 16 million hectares of paddy field are cultivated with hybrid rice each year in China. The average yield of hybrid rice is 7 tons per hectare which outyields the conventional pure line varieties by more than 1.5 tons per hectare. 

Our experiences showed that expansion of hybrid rice area is a most efficient and economic way to increase grain yield. At present, there are some 150 million hectares of rice in the world and the average yield is only 3 tons per hectare. According to FAO’S data, the acreage under hybrid rice in 1990 was 10% of the world’s rice area, but it produced 20% of total rice production. From this we can roughly calculate that if conventional rice were completely replaced by hybrid rice, total rice production in the world would be doubled, and this could meet one billion more people’s food requirements. Therefore, speeding up the development of hybrid rice in the world will be helpful to solve the starvation problems facing mankind. 

There is no national boundary in science. Hybrid rice technology belongs not only to China but also to the whole world. For the welfare of people all over the world, I will continue to do my best to promote the development of hybrid rice in and outside China, especially in developing countries. Let hybrid rice make greater contributions to the whole world. 

Thank you.

Everywhere in Asia farmers are called upon not only to feed their growing nations but also to produce rice and other commodities for export. In Vietnam, efforts to meet this challenge are complicated by the troubling legacies of recent war and economic policies that stifled individual enterprise and inadvertently limited growth. Helping Vietnam’s farmers to overcome these impediments, and to thrive, has been the life’s work of VO-TONG XUAN.

Born to a poor family in southern Vietnam, XUAN learned English as a boy and won a scholarship to the University of the Philippines in Los Banos. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural chemistry and was appointed research fellow at the nearby International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). Returning to South Vietnam in 1971, XUAN joined the faculty of the University of Cantho and headed the department of Agronomy. He completed his PhD at Kyushu University in 1975.

Still abroad when the Saigon government collapsed, XUAN elected to forsake safer and more lucrative possibilities elsewhere and returned home to resume his post at Cantho. Overcoming administrative and political obstacles in the now reunified Socialist Republic of Vietnam, he managed to extend his activities beyond the university and into the fields. A soil scientist, he explained, needs to be with farmers.

Understanding the complex environment of the individual farmer was the key, XUAN thought, to improving his country’s agricultural productivity. With farmers, he studied the intricate relationships between soil and water, plants and animals, machines, credit, markets, and government, indeed even between men and women—the whole “farming system.” This holistic approach yielded more practical solutions to farmers’ problems than those suggested by the more narrowly scientific approach, or by ideology. Through extension work and weekly radio and TV programs, XUAN introduced his innovations to farmers. They succeeded, and XUAN’s credibility rose.

XUAN pondered the lessons of “farming systems analysis.” Crop yields increase, he noted, when land tenure is secure and when the state interferes as little as possible in determining prices and distributing essential inputs. Moreover, farmers are more likely to invest in new tools and machines if they are permitted to own them themselves. Genial and self-effacing, XUAN worked patiently within the system to promote such reforms. His efforts were timely. New policies providing for long-term land leases and production incentives in 1989 led to Vietnam’s first post-war rice boom and yielded a large surplus for export. XUAN cautioned, however, that further reforms and vast improvements to the rural infrastructure are needed to sustain such a boon.

Despite the country’s isolation, XUAN assiduously cultivated Vietnam’s links to the outside world. He attended international meetings and arranged scholarships abroad for his promising young faculty members. With his help, international NGOs established grass-roots programs in Vietnam, and IRRI resumed its research there. In 1988, he helped to found the region-wide Asian Farming Systems Association. In time, XUAN became vice-rector of the university and won a seat in Vietnam’s National Assembly.

Today, 52-year-old XUAN uses his higher profile to plead the cause of Vietnam’s rural folk and to promote better training for the country’s up-and-coming scientists. Still a working scientist himself, he stays attuned to life on the farm and to promising new developments: nowadays, small-scale agro-industries are blossoming everywhere in the countryside.

In electing VO-TONG XUAN to receive the 1993 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his combining practical scientific research and effective advocacy to improve the lives of Vietnam’s farmers.

This is a great moment for me to be bestowed this award named after the great president of the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay. President Magsaysay won the hearts of the Filipino people because “he cared for all people as individuals and believed in their dignity and importance.” His great ideals inspired my own thinking during my student days at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños during the 1960s. With my wife, I strove to belong to the circle of those who place the interests of the people above all things in life.

As a youth from a poor family, I had to work to supplement my parents’ meager income, to help take care of my two brothers and three sisters, and to support myself in school. As a newspaper boy, I hopped from one passenger bus to another early every morning. At night, I tutored children who were better off than I was. I learned to treasure the value of labor and I determined to work on the side of the less privileged people in my country. In particular, I was determined to help educate millions of Vietnamese in the vital field of agriculture, and to imbue them not only with technical competence but also with ideals that promote national development.

I presented my Doctor of Agriculture dissertation at Kyushu University in 1975, just before the end of the Vietnam War. I then found myself rushing home even as thousands of Vietnamese were fleeing in the other direction.

The first two months under the new government were full of joy and anxiety: joy because the Vietnamese nation was finally unified, but anxiety because of uncertainty about whether people who worked under the old government would be welcome to participate in the postwar reconstruction. But the new university leaders started assigning me responsibilities and I soon found out that the ideas of my life converged with the goal of the new government: “For the happiness of the people.” This ideal has given me and my wife magical strength to overcome most of the difficulties and inconveniences in our life.

Peace in the Mekong Delta allowed agricultural scientists to infiltrate areas that had been untouchable during the war. We walked through thousands of hectares of burnt rice fields, withered forests, and deserted meadows. We traveled by sampan, bicycle, and motorcycle; sometimes we had to cling to the door of the last passenger bus. Yet we did not feel exhausted. On the contrary, we felt happy because each day we grew professionally and accumulated practical experiences that were not available in our textbooks. From these encounters with reality, I could see why the lack of appropriate science and technology was the main cause of the backwardness of agricultural development of the Mekong Delta.

I therefore concentrated on two things: first, training agricultural graduates and agricultural extension agents in research in food production, particularly pest-resistant rice varieties and integrated farming techniques on difficult soils; and second, transferring appropriate technologies to government administrators who administered the country’s food production plans.

At the university, I integrated classroom instruction with scientific research and extension work. Outside the university, I concentrated on multifaceted agricultural extension projects: from weekly TV programs to informal lectures during provincial or district cadres’ meetings; from discussions with top political leaders to talks with farmers. Eventually, I was able to convince the government to adopt agricultural policies that stimulate farmers to use new technologies for improving household incomes. Today I feel happy seeing the successes of our students who have become young cadres working in the agricultural offices of their respective localities, and I am even happier seeing the smiles of our collaborating farmers.

Obviously, these successes do not belong to myself alone but to a larger body of people. Being elected the 1993 Ramon Magsaysay awardee for government service, I recognize that this great honor must be accredited first to the doi moi (renovation) policy of the Vietnamese government leaders who have approved and supported my ideas, and to my colleagues and sympathizers who have been collaborating with me in putting my ideas into reality. Many high officials in the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Agriculture, the provincial and district governments, and the University of Cantho have been promoting my work and reiterating my faith in the bright future of Vietnam. My collaborators include colleagues at the University of Cantho; undergraduate and postgraduate students now working in various agricultural organizations in the country; scientists in various provinces of Vietnam; many foreign experts and leaders of several international organizations; many newspaper, radio, and TV reporters; and, of course, the farmers of Vietnam themselves.

Finally, I wish to dedicate this honor to my parents, to my wife and three children, and to my brothers and sisters who have sacrificed long days, weeks, and months without their son, husband, father, and brother so that I could devote my time to serve other people. My wife, particularly, has been the most steadfast home base, always managing things to make sure that any plan I am involved in can be accomplished.

The road ahead is still far and full of humps and potholes. But the path we have chartered, I believe, will create a new environment for the Vietnamese people to move faster toward prosperity. I pledge to try my best to continue the work I have chosen for so that I can be forever proud of this prestigious award, and so that I can live up to the expectations of the people I mentioned above and of the Ramon Magsaysay Ward Foundation, to whom I am very grateful. I beg your continuing patience and valuable support to help me fulfill my ideal.

In Japan, as in other developed societies, industrialization has transformed farming. Japan is today among the world?s most prolific users of insecticides and herbicides. Although its high-technology agriculture feeds millions with apparent efficiency, MASANOBU FUKUOKA warns that by disturbing the self-balancing processes of nature, it is also creating weak, chemical-dependent plants and poisoning the land, water, and air. 

Trained in plant pathology, FUKUOKA spent his early years as a plant inspector for the Yokohama Customs. On the side, he conducted his own scientific research but concluded ultimately that “an understanding of nature lies beyond the reach of human intelligence.” 

At the age of twenty-five, following a life-changing spiritual awakening, he abandoned his job and drifted home to his father’s orange groves. There, in the town of Iyo on the southern island of Shikoku, he began living out his newfound insight that “in the world there is nothing at all.” As a simple farmer for fifty years he has pursued a near effortless concord between himself and the land. 

“When you get right down to it, there are few agricultural practices that are really necessary,” says FUKUOKA. He does not plow his fields, nor weed them by tillage or herbicides. He does not plant seeds in tidy rows but casts them randomly upon the ground. He uses no machines, no insecticides, and no chemical fertilizers or prepared compost; he strews his rice and barley fields with straw instead. 

In FUKUOKA?s rice and barley fields, sturdy grains share their habitat with white clover, insects, birds, and small animals. In his orchards, unpruned orange trees rise prolifically above a profusion of grasses, herbs, and vegetables. They all thrive together naturally. 

FUKUOKA points out that his “do nothing” farming completely contradicts modern agricultural techniques. Yet his untidy farm yields grain and fruits just as abundantly as high-technology farms, often more so, and a rich mix of hearty vegetables besides. His method offers farmers extra leisure. It requires no expensive inputs. It creates no pollution. Moreover, it is profitable: FUKUOKA’s chemical-free produce is highly prized by health-conscious consumers. 

Despite his publicized success and several books, seventy-five-year-old FUKUOKA’s philosophy has been slow to catch on in Japan. But the 1978 English edition of his The One-Straw Revolution awakened interest elsewhere. Students, scientists, and agricultural workers from around the world now beat a path to his farm. He has spread his message personally to North America, Europe, and Africa. India received him as a prophet. His low-technology, nature-sensitive practices offer hope to India’s poorest farmers and, as FUKUOKA feels strongly, are in harmony with its Gandhian spirit. 

The earth is a generous provider, says FUKUOKA, but a fragile one. Governments should take heed and act. For healing the land will also heal the human spirit; and the land will heal, he assures us, if we remember that “natural farming exists forever as the wellspring of agriculture.” 

In electing MASANOBU FUKUOKA to receive the 1988 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes his demonstration to small farmers everywhere that natural farming offers a practical, environmentally safe, and bountiful alternative to modern commercial practices and their harmful consequences.

I have never dreamed of being conferred such a prestigious award as yours, and it is indeed the greatest honor for me to be here today. While overwhelmed with joy, I am bracing in anticipation for the heavy responsibilities of the days to come. 

If, as an expression of my deep gratitude, I may take this opportunity to share my long-cherished thoughts with you, I should be deeply honored. 

One day, while still a youth, a certain chain of events set me out on the path to farming. I started walking my road to natural farming. Being born dull-witted, however, I regret that I have failed to advance along this road as far as I should have. 

On the other hand, the kind of natural farming I advocate has only just begun and will never be perfected. I have never doubted the basic idea underlying natural farming?the green philosophy. Nor have I ever encountered any evidence to contradict it. 

Natural farming may be said to have its roots in the biblical insight: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” I do not know much about Christianity, but I take myself to be Christian. Nor do I know much about Buddhism, but I take myself to be Buddhist. 

I accept Gautama Buddha’s idea that “all is nothing.” Human knowledge that deviates from the wisdom of God is useless. There is no value whatsoever created by human desires, although modernization may make it seem otherwise. Based on the conviction that genuine truth, beauty, and pleasure can be found only in nature, I have pursued a “do-nothing,” natural way of farming — with no tilling, no fertilizer, and no chemicals. 

Fundamentally, I believe farming exists to serve and to approach God. Natural farming is the way. For God is nature, and nature is God. 

However, since modern agriculture is based upon the flawed concepts of Western philosophy, which put man in conflict with his environment, we now selfishly exploit and destroy nature for our own ends. Agriculture has degenerated into an industrial and commercial process driven by human desires, making us slaves to money and to oil. During the past few centuries, monoculture has created a bogus blanket of green that exists only for man. 

It took only two hundred years for the fertile soil of North America to become dead soil; 80 percent of Ethiopia was covered with forests only eighty years ago, but now only 3 percent of Ethiopia is green. Somalia has become a semidesert. India lost its green during the past forty-five years, Nepal during the past seventeen; these in turn caused the Ganges to flood and led to a food crisis in India. Observing this, I could not help but realize that modernized agriculture and the life of each individual are both linked ultimately to the destiny of the earth itself. 

The scientists of the world are now in agreement that “while it took 4.6 billion years to make this earth — the only green and beautiful planet in the universe — it is now on the brink of destruction because of modern civilization, which has developed in just 100 years.” Is there any way to put a stop to this? 

The only way is for man to return to his proper position within nature as one member among all living things. Then, he can recover his soul and resurrect the green. 

Why did man go astray? He has been deluded by a distorted Western view of the world based on concepts of relativity and dialectical materialism. Religion and science have kept pace. Sooner or later, however, these bankrupt ideas are destined to scatter away and vanish, leaving confusion and chaos behind. 

What we need in their place is a view of the world that embodies the Buddhist truth that ?our existence is nothingness? and that is in accord with the Christian teaching that the world and all that is in it are one. 

The Philippines was once a Garden of Eden. Trees of all kinds flourished, yielding hundreds of different kinds of fruit. To make it into a paradise again should not be just a dream. Imagine a paradise of vegetables and flowers, rich grain crops, trees laden heavily with fruit, and of beautiful green hills and plains. If by our effort the Philippines can once again become a Garden of Eden, you will be the pivot of Asia and a light to the world shining throughout the twenty-first century. 

In these increasingly chaotic modern times, we must show that will to walk the other way, to serve God by restoring nature. If your country will do this, scattering seeds on its semidesertized earth and showing the world a determination to turn it into a green paradise again, then people will become aware of the true wellspring of human joy. And they too will turn around and strive for peace and happiness. 

Tomorrow will be too late. I beg you to join me in my ardent and earnest prayer and start to take new action today.

More than a billion young people today begin life crippled by poor diets. Even in Thailand, which exports food, more than half of all infants and preschool children suffered from malnutrition as recently as 1980. Lacking healthy bodies and alert minds, malnourished children reinforce the tenacious cycle of ignorance and poverty. As a medical scientist Dr. AREE VALYASEVI has investigated this vexing problem for 27 years. 

AREE received his medical education at Siriraj Hospital Medical College in Bangkok and subsequently studied advanced pediatrics and nutrition at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. He first became aware of the deficient health and diets of rural Thais while conducting a countrywide nutritional survey in 1960. What he saw prompted him to abandon his newly begun private practice to pursue research devoted to rural public health. 

Intrigued by the high incidence among poor children in northeast Thailand of painful and debilitating bladder stone disease, AREE traced the cause to minerally imbalanced diets, combined with mild dehydration induced by heat, chronic diarrhea, vomiting and fever. He found that phosphate-rich dietary supplements could reduce bladder stone formation. This preventive measure is now used in other countries where bladder stone disease is prevalent. 

From 1976 AREE tackled protein-energy malnutrition (PEM), the most serious form of malnourishment among Thailand?s rural children. With his colleagues and students at Mahidol University’s Institute of Nutrition — which he helped found in 1976 — AREE devised palatable protein energy-rich food mixes for infants. Made from locally available beans, sesame seeds and groundnuts, these mixes can be manufactured cheaply by the villagers themselves. When introduced in Nong Hai Village, his pilot site, the percentage of normal healthy children rose from 45 to 79 in eight months. 

AREE discovered that it is “essential to integrate health care, agriculture and income generation into the nutritional package.” The means of improvement, he adds, “must be in the villagers’ own hands.” His effective advocacy encouraged adoption by the Ministry of Health of integrated, community-based nutritional programs in Thailand. Since 1981 such programs have been incorporated into national development plans and introduced, along with AREE’s food mixes, to some 12,500 villages. The incidence of PEM has declined by half, and third-degree malnutrition, the severest level of malnutrition, is 62 times rarer today than 10 years ago. 

A colleague describes 61-year-old AREE as a visionary who “works, works, works.” Aside from research and teaching he has authored or coauthored several medical textbooks and more than 78 scientific papers, and has served on numerous commissions and agencies. As Founding Dean of Ramathibodi Medical School (1968 to 1977), AREE introduced a comprehensive course on community health. His internationally respected curriculum emphasizes disease prevention and requires medical students to learn techniques of community diagnosis and planning. It also encourages young doctors to stay in rural practice following the two years the government requires of them. Some one-third of Ramathibodi’s graduates have done so, giving Thailand, with AREE’s guidance, a new generation of doctors for a new generation of healthier children. 

In electing Dr. AREE VALYASEVI to receive the 1987 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Board of Trustees recognizes his contribution in improving the diets and promoting the good health of millions of Thai children.

Today I am very thrilled and honored to be here to receive the 1987 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership. 

This prestigious Award is universally known to be given in recognition of persons who contribute in various ways to human societies in accordance with the ideals of Ramon Magsaysay. 

Most developing countries in Asia are facing similar health and nutritional problems as a result of poverty, social injustice, improper feeding habits, poor sanitation, lack of safe water and inadequate health care facilities. The leading causes of children’s death in developing countries are still malnutrition and infections of various kinds. These unfortunate children get caught in a vicious cycle of malnutrition and frequent infections, absence from schools or work, illiteracy and poverty. When these children become parents it is likely that their offspring will enter the same vicious cycle. 

Solutions to these important and urgent problems must be found and something must be done to remedy the situation; knowledge and experiences gained in one country can be shared with others. It is our hope that malnutrition will gradually disappear by the turn of this century. All of want to live in a world where man can live with man in honor and peace. This is, in fact, the spirit and aspiration of the great leader, Ramon Magsaysay. 

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the members of the Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for selecting me for the Award and inviting me here. However, my work is not possible without the enthusiastic support of my staff at Mahidol University’s Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, and the Institute of Nutrition. I thank them and I would like to thank also the agencies which have given generous support for my work during the past 25 years.

Chronic hunger, high infant mortality, isolation and a sense of hopelessness was the lot of most inhabitants of the 110-odd islands of Indonesia’s southeast Nusa Tenggara Timur province. Cursed by the nation’s longest and most erratic dry season — broken occasionally by heavy rainstorms — and miserable rocky soil, the farmers (80 percent of the population) were dependent on slash and burn methods of cultivation and could seldom grow enough corn for subsistence. The coastal communities on the three larger islands (Sumba, Flores, Timur), trading sporadically with the modern economies on Java, Bali and Sulawesi, were handicapped by lack of port facilities and roads into the interior. 

Thus, excluded from Indonesia’s growing prosperity, the islanders felt themselves forgotten by the national leaders in Jakarta. Native young people seeking a beuer future left the province. Outside investors had little interest in using the idle wild grassland for cattle grazing, or in exploiting the abundant fishing grounds in the adjoining waters because processing and shipping infrastructure did not exist. 

It was difficult for ALOYSIUS BENEDICTUS MBOI and NAFSIAH MBOI-WALINONO — both medical practitioners — to leave the comforts and professional and financial attractions of Jakarta for the backward province to which he was appointed governor in 1978, even though he had been born to a rajah family of the province, in Ruteng, Flores, in 1935, and she to a noble house of Sengkang in neighboring South Sulawesi, in 1940. They met in her first and his fourth year in medical college where he was president of the Student Council, and they were married when she graduated. 

Entering the Army Medical Corps, Dr. BEN MBOI broadened his professional skills with special training in public health. Advanced study took him to Belgium, Norway, West Germany and Holland before he promoted to colonel and head of the army’s Preventive Medicine Institute. Dr. NAFSIAH MBOI took graduate courses in pediatrics in Belgium and Holland. She became an ardent practitioner of socially conscious medicine and led in mobilizing women to create effective health organizations. 

Since moving to the provincial capital of Kupang, where BEN is now serving his second five-year term as governor, this couple has initiated dramatic change in prospects for the province. Food — and water for growing crops — was the new governor’s first priority. Where government agencies responsible for teaching and assisting farmers had often been moribund, he enthused their staffs with a sense of direction and purpose that has helped farmers make the province self-sufficient in grain for the past three years. Repeated trips to remote villages convinced him that better access was essential and his skillful persuasion in Jakarta resulted in funding to build over 1,000 kilometers of blacktop roads and more gravel feeder roads. Most vital is his instilling educators, technicians and officials with a contagious perception of what they can do with will and work. 

So-called  “child killers” became an urgent concern of NAFSIAH, who became director of the province’s community health services. Neonatal tetanus, gastroenteritis and measles were the major causes of the mortality of infants under the age of one year, reportedly exceeding 124 deaths per 1,000. NAFSIAH vitalized the Village Family Welfare Movement and Dharma Wanita, the organization of wives of civil servants; a growing women’s cooperative movement emerged as a result of her leadership. She also established a provincial board for coordination and advancement of nongovernmental efforts in the field of social development, bringing to these organizations recognition, self-respect, information and funds. The Indonesian Planned Parenthood Association came alive with new outreach. 

The gregarious, jolly governor and his enterprising wife agree that the work has only begun. When they first arrived in Kupang he challenged his staff: “If not us, who? If not now, when?” The couple’s infectious energy and optimism inspired the answers: “us” and “now.” 

In electing Governor ALOYSIUS BENEDICTUS MBOI and Dr. NAFSIAH MBOI-WALINONO to receive the 1986 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the Board of Trustees recognizes their open-hearted invigoration of government and cooperating agencies, bringing practical rural progress and new self-motivation to nearly three million villagers in Indonesia’s bleakest province.

This is a very historic moment for my wife and me, for the people and government of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT), even for the people and government of Indonesia. As such, I request that, in the Indonesian tradition, we bow our heads to pray and to thank God for this blessing, and for allowing us to come together this evening. 

Let us also pray for our forebears and founding fathers who have shown us the way, who have given us values by which we live, as well as the spirit to strive to the best of our abilities for the good of our fellow citizens. In particular we give thanks for the example of two great Filipino heroes, Jose Rizal and Ramon Magsaysay. May they rest in peace, a peace well earned through their service to humanity. 

News of the Ramon Magsaysay Award came to us as unexpectedly as lightning — first from friends who listened to the Voice of America and later from others hearing of it on Radio Australia. We did not believe the news, as we did not feel deserving of any special honor nor did we expect such recognition for what we have been doing. Frankly, even as I stand before you this evening, I still feel myself unworthy of this prestigious Award. 

Be that as it may, as a participant in these ceremonies, I sincerely wish to thank you for the honor which, in my opinion, is a recognition and acknowledgment of our national strategy, our policies, and our programs, particularly towards village people and people in more remote areas. Perhaps more than anything else, it is a recognition of our on-going efforts over a period of years, rather than recognition of particular accomplishments. 

I say our “efforts,” because it is my observation that in fact not much has yet been achieved either tangible or intangible. There is still a long way to go to reach the goal of fully realized national freedom. 

Leadership in a developing country is not an easy task, and leaders are not in an easy position. Leadership is a blessing, it is a call, it is a privilege, and it is an honor. At the same time it is a responsibility and a challenge. 

Leaders and leadership must be adequate to meet challenges, and relevant to the environment. Leadership must be adaptive to specific situations — it must try to adjust ideas, decisions and efforts to the condition of the people and to their aspirations. It is not an easy task, particularly in a heterogeneous social situation, with sometimes overlapping and sometimes conflicting loyalties and ties, both vertically and horizontally. 

Having a background as a doctor — a rural doctor who has lived close to the people and is sensitive to their problems — can in itself be a problem. One is sometimes almost too sensitive to be a leader. Fortunately, I have had a rather unique background, being not only a doctor, but an officer in the army special forces and a public administrator. These separate experiences have been very useful to me in my service in NTT. 

But dilemmas often arise and cannot be avoided. Leaders must often face misunderstanding, perhaps cynicism and skepticism. As Edmund Burke advised long ago: “Those who carry on great public duties should be proof against fatiguing delays, mortifying disappointments, shocking insults and, worst of all, misunderstanding from the ignorant.” 

In facing the trials of leadership these words give one support and encouragement. 

If development is to mean total human development — individual as well as societal — then a plural society like NTT poses a real problem and challenge to leadership. We believe there is only one approach which can work, the approach of participative development. Although many would say it runs the risk of being too idealistic, and will take too long for any single leader to witness the results of his efforts, nonetheless it is the approach we have tried to apply. 

This is the reason I said previously that I have not observed any remarkable results as a consequence of our efforts during my term as governor. We have taken the long, slow, participatory approach. 

I am indeed honored to be the recipient of this prestigious Award, the more so because I share it with my beloved wife. It is an acknowledgment which makes us more confident that we are on the right track and that we must continue the long journey of development –human development, institutional development, national development. We wish to thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation and the Board of Trustees for selecting w, among perhaps thousands of eligible people, to receive this prestigious Award. 

We would also like to thank those who recommended us in the belief that we have achieved something, and the president and government of Indonesia which granted w permission to receive this Award and which has also supported us and given us the opportunity to work with the people of our province.