Making a tail wag the dog:

blending little and the  Big science

anil k gupta, vipin kumar, mahesh patel, and ramesh patel

Honey Bee Network, National Innovation Foundation and IIMA

Honey Bee Network has been pursuing for more than two decades the blend between two systems of thoughts and knowledge differing mainly in pedagogies more than substantive principle. The ability of common people to abstract scientific principles may be limited but their ability to develop generalizable, testable and refutable technologies is not limited. Without this ability they could not have developed the skill and science of keeping milk drinkable for several days without having access to refrigerator. High carbon steel was not known in ancient Europe while tribal communities in several parts of the country were developing it. Why did this tradition not flourish and feed into evolution of valid and viable science in the country? Tradition of tempering such steel to give strength and torque is some thing still exists. But do we have equations which will enable a local community to forge the kind of steel they may need for meeting varying needs of modern agriculture, or medical science. Let me recall an incident from Karnataka:

About 25 years ago, I ( Gupta) was in a workshop with carpenters and blacksmiths in rural Karnataka, south India to discuss the way in which local innovators solve their problems. The wood used in the plough shear has to be very strong, dense and durable because of the obvious friction it has to bear while ploughing the

land. Traditionally, farmers had used slow growing species like acacia sps, which have dense wood for the purpose. Over a period of time, the front edge of the shear gets blunted. Farmers don’t want to throw away the rest of the shear. Thus begins the material science research. The farmer went to the junkyard and started looking for different kinds of scrap of which he could make a shoe to be fitted on the shear. The metallic shoe will increase the life of the plough manifold. The rear portion of the shear has many years left. Finally, the metal used for suspension in the automobile was found to have the right combination of strength, weight, torque and durability. The point is that intuitively the local artisans and farmers have been doing some kind of material science research but, their choices are limited, their repertoire restricted and therefore the outcomes may be sub-optimal(Gupta,1988, 2011).

Let me recall another example I first learned in 1991-92.  In Andhra Pradesh, tobacco growers put their hands in a pot of fresh milk after transplanting a few seedlings.  This is reportedly done to prevent diffusion of Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV).  Dr. Chari, then Director of Central Tobacco Research Institute had told me about this practice, when I inquired about examples of farmers’ practices which they had found exciting and intriguing (also see Honey Bee, 10(4): 7,1999, Honey Bee: 11(1) 7-8, 2000). Apparently if there were a few infected seedlings, then through, rub-inoculation it will spread but not through insects, nematodes, fungi etc.,( Scholthof, 2004)

In Gujarat, we came across a practice reported by Thakor Morarji (Honey Bee, 2(1):21, 1991) based on the experience of Chhaganbhai Bhimjibhai of District Amreli in which farmers pour milk on the hooves of the animals, affected by Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).

When Gupta  was a child and had a pain in the ear, mother’s milk was put to give some relief. We have asked this question to many scientists and have received several possible explanations: Properties of human milk in infant’s stomach after an hour of ingestion have been reported to cause inhibition of certain viruses (Charles E. Isaacs, Halldor Thormar and Tammy Pessolano, 1986,) and Milk has also been recommended for plant virus control in Canada( 2005 ) and India( 1999, 2000). There could be many other explanations, medium chain fatty acids, lipases, RNase enzyme and so on.  We still need to figure out the science of how whey, milk, skimmed milk and others in helping prevent diffusion of certain kind of pathogens including viruses.

We learned another intriguing practice in 1992 which remains to be studied scientifically (Honey Bee, 3(2), 19, 1992). Three farmers from the same district Bharuch, Gujarat  but different villages reported crushing leaves of Dhumas( Combretrum ovalifolium)  or another plant keji)  with insect blister beetle to trigger certain chemicals which would reportedly repel the pest. Not very often do we come across chemical formulations including plant and insect extracts.

In Orissa, we came across another example where Buddhdeb Sahu in ANgul discovered the use of a particular plant, which ripened banana better. When CFTRI did research on it, they found that it not only ripened better but also changed the ratio of reducing to non reducing sugars, making the fruits healthier and  sweeter.

Two young farmers viz., Mehter Hussain and Mushtaq Ahmed from Assam made a bamboo windmill costing Rs.5000/= to pump water for their small farm. Their problem was not to get too much of water too soon. A small hand pump energized by windmill was sufficient for their need. Who would ever imagine an application of this kind and at this cost? When the same windmill was adapted for salt workers in Gujarat, it had to be made of iron and the cost increased to Rs.50000. Although the height was only about 25 feet, it could be bent 90 degrees downwards in one of the models so that a strong storm could  pass over it  without damaging the windmill. Once you add such a feature, you don’t need to make a very strong windmill and you don’t need very deep foundation either. The flexibility, the frugality and affordability make such innovations quite user friendly. The interesting thing is that such designs are often a work in progress. The user can still adapt them, modify them and amplify their features.

There are thousands of such examples in the Honey Bee Network database mobilized over last more than two decades from around 545 districts. It took SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions) with very limited resources to mobilize 10000 innovations and traditional knowledge practices in the first ten years.            In the last ten years, additional 140,000 ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge practices were mobilised from all over the country through NIF (National Innovation Foundation).            A micro venture innovation fund was set up in 2003 with the help of SIDBI [Small-scale Industries Development Bank of India] to provide risk capital to the innovators intending to become entrepreneurs. Many of these innovations are valorized through linkage with formal science and technology institutions institutionalized through MOU with CSIR [Council of Scientific and Industrial Research] and ICMR [Indian Council of Medical Research]. Last year, the Union Cabinet took

a decision to make NIF the part of National Innovation System by making it a grant-in-aid institution of Department of Science and Technology.            This has expanded the opportunities and enhanced the potential. Honey Bee Network and SRISTI have also tried to create global platforms for lateral learning among people and institutions from grassroots innovators. One of such initiatives covered various commonwealth countries, another India, China and Brazil and third Asian Pacific countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, etc.            China has taken up the cause of grassroots innovations in a vigorous manner in the last six years. Malaysian Science & Technology Minister visited NIF, SRISTI and IIMA to build a lasting partnership for the purpose. A Global Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN) was proposed along with the Tianjin Declaration for creating online, multimedia, multi language platform for collaborative design and development – a dream yet to be fully realized.

The challenge before us is to explore the search for sustainability science, which makes the knowledge, innovation and practices of common people not valuable for generating affordable solution, but also for producing high quality science

Honey Bee Network, SRISTI, GIAN and NIF are keen to forge partnership with all colleagues who are willing to share their expertise with innovators in informal sector and contribute towards empathetic and Gandhian engineering solutions. If young students can get excited about intriguing grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge, we can hasten the process of generation of not only public goods but also produce high quality patentable technologies which will be accessible to common people under Technological Commons framework and licensable on commercializable terms to firms.

Select references:

Charles E. Isaacs, Halldor Thormar and Tammy Pessolano, 1986, Membrane-Disruptive Effect of Human Milk: Inactivation of Enveloped Viruses, The journal of infectious Diseases, 156(4) 966-971

Anil K Gupta, 2011, Frugal, flexible and friendly innovations for extreme affordability: Engagement with Honey Bee Network, keynote lecture at NSF-ASME conference on  Research  in  Materials and Manufacturing for Extreme Affordability, Ball University, USA

————-, From Sink to Source: The Honey Bee Network documents indigenous knowledge and innovations in India, in innovations / Summer 2006, www. mitpress.mit.edu/innovations, p. 49 – 66.

Milk as Management tool for viruses, http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/hort/news/grower/2005/11gn05a1.htm downloaded on April 12, 2011, Ministry of Agriculture, and Rural affairs, Food  Ontario, Canada

Managing Foot and Mouth Disease through Innovative Traditions, Honey Bee   Vol 11(2) 5-6 April-June 2000

Anil K Gupta