The 1972 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

RESPONSE of Hans Westenberg

Standing before you as a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, I am intensely aware of the fact that this is the greatest Award and honor that can be given to a person in Asia. That this Award should be bestowed on me came as one of the biggest surprises of my life. I am overwhelmed with feelings of pride and gratitude.

The question may be asked, and I asked myself many times, what have I done to deserve such a great honor? My personal opinion in this case is that throughout my life circumstances have been very much in my favor and have contributed substantially to the results that have followed from my work. It is thus not that in any way I am worthy of this Award, but rather that circumstances have prospered my activities and focused the attention of many people on the results.

At my birth I inherited a great interest in agriculture from my mother. Then, from the moment I started work on rubber estates in November 1919, I have tried to solve the problems of increasing yields by introducing new varieties and methods of cultivation. This kind of work became my hobby and when one follows his hobby he is in truth simply doing what interests and satisfies him personally; this work, in fact, has proved of no great burden to me.

What one person can do, however, is very limited and it has been my great fortune always to find others who had the same interest or who held important positions in society, willing to cooperate and assist me in the work of introducing new varieties and more advanced methods of cultivation into Indonesian agriculture. In most cases the new varieties and methods we have introduced have been based on the results of recent research carried out by agricultural scientists working in many countries.

By applying the results of basic research, and with the assistance of those in influential positions and others in organizations interested in raising the standard of living of poor farmers, some worthwhile in certain instances substantial—results have been obtained through our combined efforts.

Thus, in receiving the Award I feel somewhat guilty, knowing that the Award should have been shared by many others who have assisted my work. I should like to mention a few of these people at this point in recognition of their efforts in supporting my activities:

Our former Indonesian Ambassador to the Philippines, Major General Kusno Utomo, at that time Commander in Chief of the Indonesian Army in Sumatra, provided unstinting support and his Chief of Staff, Major General Josef Muskita, became the head of the project on our experimental farm for the multiplication of the new rice varieties developed in your country. For this operation I was appointed project manager.

Professor Tan Hong Tong, at that time Director of the Research Institute of the Sumatra Planters Association; and R. C. Pickett of Purdue University, who helped me find a suitable variety of sorghum for our region.

The staff of the Rockefeller Foundation and other research institutes who have helped me find high yielding varieties of corn, soybeans, groundnuts, mungo beans and other crops.

And last but not least, Rudy Ramp, formerly Deputy Director of CARE Indonesia, who played an important role in helping me establish a "Foundation for Indonesian Farming Development." This Foundation, with support of influential persons in various ministries of the Indonesian Government and in the business world, will, I hope and trust, continue to improve and extend our work in helping thousands of small farmers improve their economic circumstances.

Perhaps you would like to know what use has been made of the Award money granted me. The money has been fully invested in a project to introduce sorghum into Indonesian agriculture. We have established drying, threshing and marketing facilities to service the small farmers and estates growing sorghum for the first time in our area, and are providing information and supervision, together with credits for fertilizer and seed, to the small farmers involved.

Grain sorghum will surely become a new export crop and an important new basic food grain for domestic consumption because of its high protein content, high yield potential and drought resistance. I believe that it will become one of the most important crops planted by farmers cultivating dryland who have previously had to depend on less reliable crops for their existence.

In conclusion I would like once again to express my gratitude for the honor bestowed on me as recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership and to convey my humble thanks to the Board of Trustees and Members of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation for their generosity and hospitality.