Scientists are often blamed for living in a ‘scientific bubble’. Therefore, we challenge scientists at the Tropentag to explain their presentation as if they were talking to my mum at the kitchen table, who has, besides her own home garden and her cat and dog, nothing to do with research on ‘animal nutrition’. In part II we present Rein van der Hoek. Rein van der Hoek Rein van der Hoek works since 2006 as forage researcher in Central America and the Caribbean at CIAT (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical) and is based in Nicaragua. During his presentation ‘Tropical forages to enhance productivity of monogastric animals with low-income farmers in Nicaragua and Honduras’, he attracts attention by trying to convince the audience not to forget Central America in research. “At the Tropentag there is hardly any work presented from Central America. Although we ‘only’ talk about 50 million people or so, which is relatively few in comparison with Africa and Asia, we have to take this part of the world into consideration.” His enthusiasm for this region is clear, but will he also pass the test to explain his research to people outside the ‘scientific bubble’? Can you explain what your research is about? “My research is about the use of forage legumes, a special kind of plants, and how we can use these legumes to feed pigs. Poor farmers normally use household residues such as old tortillas to feed the pigs. But this is not enough, because it’s a small quantity. Then the farmers add grain or sorghum which they have produced on their field. But because the farmers can use this grain and sorghum also for their own food or can sell this on the market, this is a disadvantage. The pigs are directly competing with their own nutrition and their income.” “The farmers need all revenue they can obtain. That’s why we are now experimenting with these forage legumes to decrease the costs for the farmer to feed the pigs. Furthermore, the forage legumes have a higher amount of protein, so they have the potential to increase the growth of the pigs. When the pigs grow faster, they can sell them faster; they can get money faster and this money can be used to pay the school for the children, to buy medicines, and so on.” What are your main outcomes? “The main outcome of our research is that you can substitute part of the cereals, the grain and sorghum, by these legumes. We found that it is possible to replace the cereals by approximately 30 percent. At this percentage the pigs are not growing less. But the growth of the animals is not as high as we would have expected.” “If we want to make sure that these animals contribute more to the income of the farmer, we have to work further on other methods of feeding. We are now continuing our work and are trying other methods of feeding, producing and processing the legumes. Another advantage of the legumes is that they also improve the soil fertility. Some of the legumes can even produce food for the farmers. If the farmers see the utility of these forest legumes, then not only the pigs will grow a bit faster, but the other crops will also give a better yield due to the better soil quality.” What are the main challenges in this research? “Wow, there are many challenges. The most important challenge is to convince the farmers. In fact, it should not be us to convince the farmers. It should be the farmers who convince themselves by seeing the advantages of these kinds of technologies.” “It’s always this part, the adoption, which is very crucial. But we are a research institute, we’re not doing development. We work with farmers, maybe 20, which is already a lot. But this does not have a lot of impact. We produce the results, write nice reports and manuals. But this is where our work more or less stops. If you want to have an impact, you have to work with more than 2000 farmers. Our work should be taken over by development organisations, or better, by national organisations who can then propagate and disseminate these technologies.” “But thes are poor countries; the national institutions often don’t have the money. This makes it difficult to realize. But we are trying to link up with NGOs with projects that are financed by foreign donors. We hope they can use our results on a wider scale in order to achieve more impact.” Are you also looking for business partners instead of NGOs? “In some cases it happens that you work in ‘public private partnerships’. But the problem is that for many businesses the farmers we work with are not very interesting. They just do not have much purchasing power. Businesses might find it difficult to see benefits by participating in this kind of work. But the cooperation with the private sector is not excluded. For the production of seeds of forage legumes for example, the private sector can help. They might be interesting to participate if they can multiply the seeds and sell it with a small profit.” But it’s not part of the research program to make sure that other partners will implement your research findings? “Although we’re trying, we do not have much power in this. We always work with local and national partners. I hope they will carry on our work. Unfortunately, this is not always happening due to internal politics, a lack of money and many other things." "By networking and trying to get involved in the work of other potential partners we hope that there might be more opportunities in disseminating these technologies. But this is not what we are supposed to do, because we are a research organization. On the other hand we also need funding. The distinction between research and development is not always that clear. But I don't think that’s a problem.”