LEADERSHIP, RISK MANAGEMENT, AND DECISION-MAKING IN AGRICULTURE UNDER THE UNCERTAINTY OF THE COVID-19 CRISIS

BY DR. NIMROD

“To Excel, You Need The Courage To Fail”

When the COVID-19 crisis broke out, with its “new normal,” the Biofeed management team decided that we would not let that crisis stop us from achieving our targets and fulfill our goals.

This, even if it meant taking greater business and professional risks and doing things in an ‘unconventional’ manner.

Here is a story of one such event, where we extended our efforts and took risks well beyond what we would do under normal circumstances.

This story is about the SUCCESS of management and leadership in COVID-19 times.

When nothing you planned is possible to execute, and the tomorrow is difficult and uncertain.

Agricultural activities follow the seasons of the year. In the case of Biofeed, we are working with orchard owners who need to protect their produce from fruit flies.

Not the trees, nor the fruits or the fruit flies cares about the COVID-19 crisis.

They have their natural rhythm and missing a week or a month may mean missing a whole season, translating into a year activity.

In 2020 Biofeed was set, with its Senegalese partners, to perform regulation trials and a demo of FFCTZ (Fruit Fly Certified Trade Zone) program, which requires my presence in Senegal.

What do you do when the skies are closed, and you don’t know when they will be open again and when or how you can start the seasonal planned activity?

Fruit fly control is one of the most demanding and strict when it comes down to the need to apply it on time and in a perfect way.

In 2020, I was facing a situation where, due to COVID-19 restrictions, I wasn’t able to arrive in Senegal for five months (February to mid-July).

No activity was possible, we could execute nothing we planned, and the mango harvest season (our target) was fading away.

The way and style you react in such an uncertain and unfavorable environment is clear leadership, managerial, and professional dilemma.

I hope that the following story will inspire you to see how you can change your future through courageous and goal-oriented management to achieve the success you wish.

BACKGROUND: MANGO IN SENEGAL Senegal exports mangoes, but due to fruit fly infestations and chemical residues, the export is under constant threat of a total Export Ban .Together with our local Senegalese partners, we defined in 2019, a detailed activity plan for 2020, which included, among others, a demonstration of effective fruit fly control in a FFCTZ demo program. But then the Corona (COVID-19) crisis broke out, and in an instant, everything came to a halt. Nothing was clear or predictable from that moment and on.   FEET ON THE GROUND Past Biofeed experience has taught us, in a hard way, the importance of being present in the field when carrying out a cooperation/project, and especially during the first year of joint activity with a new partner. This is regardless of who the partner is and his professional level. The high level of professionalism, together with long experience and deep commitment in such a project, taught us to have a physical presence of a Biofeed professional representative, which is often myself, during any first implementation and critical activities. Being present at any ‘first step’ became mandatory under all scenarios!   COVID-19 INFLUENCE; ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER MONTH With the outbreak of the crisis, flights were stopped instantly, even before we had time to make the minimum necessary preliminary visits, field training, face-to-face meetings, and deployment of the control and monitoring array in the field. What do we do now, as a leader? We discussed the possible ways with our Senegalese partners and together decided to wait for the flights to resume. At first, it was deceiving, and seemed like the “New Normality” without flights is only for a week or two. But when weeks turned into months, we understood that we might completely lose this year. Finally, at the end of July, some flights resume. Thank God, I say to myself, and make the necessary arrangement to go to Senegal. Equipped with a COVID-19 Test (Negative result), and along with 20 other passengers on a giant Boeing plane, I boarded the first flight to Senegal. Nineteen hours later, I landed in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, which was over-crowded than usual, with families preparing for the Tabasky (Aid D’al Kebir) holiday gatherings. My first action was to go and to see the proposed area for the FFCTZ demo model.   A NIGHTMARE STARTING POINT On July 27th, I got to the field, the first thing I did was talk to the farmer, who is telling me that; “due to fruit fly infestation, there is no export after July 15th. But now it is the end of August. At this time, the fruit fly infestations rise to 70% and even higher. “Once again, I say, “Thank God,” when I see many fruits still on the trees, thanks to late bloom. That means we would be able to have late-season fruit fly control for the fruits that will be harvested at the end of August, just 3-4 weeks ahead. Naturally, the late, rainy season, is far more challenging for fruit fly control. Usually, the fruit fly population rises during this period, and with it, the fruit infestation increases. Furthermore, we typically start control 3 to 6 months before harvest, when the fruit fly population is low, and it is easier to keep it down. It is evident that now the fruit fly population is high. The above presents an additional unexpected personal and professional challenge, especially when applying a new methodology. After having a long meeting with the farmer, I went to the orchard itself, to the plots scheduled for the FFCTZ model program. Wasting no time, we start deploying the FreeDome units in the FFCTZ program. While doing so, I note that all (100%) mature fruits are heavily infested by Bactrocera dorsalis.

Mango infested by hundreds of fruit fly larvae.

DOING THE BEST WE CAN

Finally, the two weeks of COVID-19 isolation are over. I am happy to meet my team face-to-face in the office.

But before too long, we get a message from our local partners in Senegal, "in a week time harvest begins."

That is sending me back on the road, or more like 'to the plane.'

Armed with yet another COVID-19 negative test (the 3^rd one in a month), and this time with 50 passengers on the plane, and much concern about what I will find, I made my way back to Senegal.

I landed in Dakar with a heavy heart, knowing that ripe fruit infestation by fruit flies is well over 50% at the end of August.

In the FFCTZ program, fruits must be very ripe by now.

On my way to the experiment fields, I pray that the fruit infestation will be as it is in the sprayed plots, not more. If lucky, we will have only 20% of fruit infestation.

Are we going to be lucky? There is nothing good to expect.

I arrived at the orchard to find out that at the commercial plots, due to infestation fear, the farmer already harvested, leaving behind only the very unripe green fruits.

Thank God, "our" farmer did what he promised and left untouched the fruits in the FFCTZ model area.

But now we have to deal with a new problem; how do we compare infestation when fruits in the FFCTZ program are three weeks more mature and ripe than the unripe, leftover fruits, in the commercial plots?

It is coming handy to know that the average additional weekly fruit infestation in commercial sprayed orchards, at this time, is about 15%. We will have to consider it when the time comes.

FINALLY, GOOD NEWS

During the last week of August, we monitor (twice) the fly population and fruit infestation in hundreds of fruits.

We do it with a big group of people, including people from the ministry of agriculture, to be sure that it is adequately done, random, and not biased.

Our findings are then confirmed with the farmer's observation.

There is no mistake; the results are shocking.

Most fruits in the commercial plots were harvested, leaving behind only green unripe fruits (left side fruit), wherein the FFCTZ plots fruits were not harvested and hence are ripe (right side fruit), with an inner yellow color, and three weeks more mature [>><<].

Commercial orchards – treated with sprays

No surprises here, even in the very green unripe fruits (3 weeks less mature versus the FFCTZ fruits), we find – 15% infestation. Fruits are infested only by eggs, which means it is very recent.

Suppose we extrapolate this data with the additional 15% infestation per week and double it by 3 (the lag of maturity versus the not harvested fruits in the FFCTZ treatment). In that case, we expect at this time, under regular commercial treatment, to reach a minimum of 60% fruit damage.

FFCTZ model treatment

According to the FFCTZ protocol, these plots were treated using the FreeDome solution, without any fruit fly sprays.

To my amazement, even though we sampled many more fruits in the FFCTZ plots than in control (nearly twice as many in the FFCTZ program), we observed ONLY 0.4% (!!) fruit infestation.

Again, only 0.4% infestation versus the typical 70%!

This is over 99.9% reduction in infestation versus the infestation in the Commercial Ripe and Unripe treatments!

Ripe mango infestation by fruit flies in Senegal, under Commercial treatment (sprays), at the end of August is typically over 70% (blue). This year (2020), at the end of August, we compared the infestation of UNRIPE mangoes from commercial plots (brown) to RIPE mangoes from FFCTZ plots (green).

And what about the fruit fly population?

In the U-traps monitoring traps, counts went down to as few as seven flies a day!

Starting with 2,000 a day, that means we managed, in just a few weeks, to reduce the local Fruit Fly population by 96.5%!

To be sure that there is no mistake, I asked the farmer on the nearby mango farm (100 hectares), "What is the regular fruit infestation here at the end of August?" Without hesitation, he answered, "Minimum 70%".

Deep inside, I was smiling and relieved.

Infestation level of RIPE mangoes at the end of August in FFCTZ plots is lower by 99.9% versus the average perennial infestation of RIPE and the 2020 UNRIPE Commercial treatments (blue). During August, the fruit fly population typically increases, while in 2020, we achieved a stunning reduction of 96.5% (brown).

If you are a farmer who knows his numbers, you can do the math by yourself

by summing the following C+D+I factors -

C - your current investment in fruit fly control.

D - your direct losses caused by fruit fly damage.

I – your indirect losses caused by losing export markets, a short export period, the need to harvest immature fruits, lack of flexibility in the time of harvest, etc.

TAKING THE RISK OF FAILING

As we enter the final stage of this mango season in Senegal, we can smile and say that we achieved a considerable and unique milestone on the way of enabling the farmers of Senegal and Africa to reach export markets, year-round and free of fear from Export-Ban.

But those achievements wouldn't be made possible without taking risks, and in 2020, due to the COVID-19 crises, even much higher professional and personal risks than we usually would take.

It wouldn't be possible without personally, being in the fields, fully understanding and grasping the situation, adjusting plans in real-time to suit the problems as I understand it, and aligned everybody's activities according to an updated plan devised collectively.

By the way, the situation described above is far from being "standard," yet it demonstrates well why we must be present in the first steps, including the implementation, during the first year/season.

Essential and critical to success is that all participants fully cooperated and accepted the changes that we proposed and were imposed by the situation upon us.

While we can't control the COVID-19 challenges, which were forced upon us and other uncontrolled factors, we can control how we react to changes, and how we behave under unexpected, harsh conditions.

We can choose to always keep safe with a 100% certainty of results, or at least we think and hope so.

Or we can embrace the change, update plans, take managerial and professional risks, and move full steam ahead, knowing that success is promised to no one but for those who work hard and dare to fail.

Marcelino, the mango grower, and Dr. Nimrod.

The aftermath of the story presented before you is that not only that we have achieved our targets and goals for 2020, but we managed to improve our cooperation and trust with our private and government partners in Senegal.

Furthermore, we received precious information about our technology and protocol, under extreme conditions, which otherwise we would never dare to experiment.

We saved time and budget for our partners.

We enabled Senegal's government to get a step closer to achieving its long-term Strategic Goal of helping its fruit exporters to safely export anytime, any volume, any crop, to any market, free of fear from Export Ban.

AWAITING "THE RIGHT TIME"

The right moment may never come for those who await the perfection of tomorrow. They will continue waiting for vain.

The way I choose is constant progress, even at a price that things may not be 'perfect' and precisely as I would love them to be.

Above all, it is a leadership decision that takes courage to carry the burden of failure.

Those who choose to take that path will find that over time they accomplish far more than their counterparties who were awaiting the perfect moment and taking no risks.

Doing nothing is also a risk. The most progressive organizations globally, including countries, are the ones that DO, AND DARE TO FAIL.

Strive for the best, and don't settle for less than a much better future.

Contact me if you wish to discuss your options to kick-start your economy or national scale operation using advanced economic models, protocols, and field-tested proven agricultural technologies.

Let's see how together we can take a GIANT step forward and bring high-value business and market results.