Giving Compass’ Take:

• The behavioral change taught by Dr. Norman Borlaug is contingent upon working directly with members of a community and training other NGOs to build trust to make their technology more accessible.

• Can harnessing data and technology be more effective when people and communities are taught certain methods of learning?

•Read more about behavioral change in the agricultural community. 

Dr. Norman Borlaug was one of The Rockefeller Foundation’s longest-serving program officers. Credited with launching the Green Revolution, which saved a billion lives and earned him the Nobel Prize in 1970, Dr. Borlaug once told my mentor at the Foundation that if you tell a farmer how to improve yields by 20 percent, they might listen. But if you show them how to double yields, they’ll start doing things differently. It’s an oft-forgotten lesson: Capturing the full potential of data and technology depends on changing human behavior.

The Foundation has long embraced the power of science and technology to change the world. To differentiate our approach from regular charity, we coined the term “scientific philanthropy”: study the root causes of a problem, develop and test innovative solutions, then scale what works.

Take our work in agriculture, for example. In 1943, the Foundation formally partnered with the Mexican government to address the country’s inadequate production of corn. The team tested over 800 varieties of Mexican corn to study their behavior under various conditions. Based on the data, the team worked with local farmers to plant the best varieties, improving crop yield almost immediately.

Read the full article about data in agriculture by Zia Khan at The Rockefeller Foundation.