Human relationships are as important as technical skills, says development agriculturist Paul Craig.

320Development agriculturist Paul Craig emphasised that human relationships are as important as technical skills, speaking at a Greencoat Forum on the theme "A purpose for life?", on 18 March.

"Technology is important but unless it is backed by relationships it is not going to yield its full potential," he said.

Craig, Managing Director of Agrisystems Ltd, which is dedicated to "challenging the causes of poverty", has worked in countries ranging from Zambia and Nigeria to India, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Albania. He had just flown in from Georgia to give his talk, which he illustrated with stories from his own life choices, and from a video clip of his early life in the documentary What are you living for?

The film poses "how to create the trust and friendship needed to meet the food needs of the world". It shows how an "iron curtain" was lifted in Craig’s life through honesty between him and his father, which restored their friendship. On graduation, Craig could have taken a desk job as an agricultural advisor, but instead chose the hard work of hands-on stockmanship as a cattle breeder.

Craig emphasised that global crop yields, individual protein and calorie consumption, and life expectancy have all increased significantly in the last 25 years, alongside global population growth. But despite these gains there were still "serious deprivations in developing countries", including income poverty, the illiteracy of over 850 million people word-wide and HIV/Aids affecting 34 million people.

Craig told of three marking incidents in his life from the last 30 years. The first, in Zambia, was when he had blamed a local livestock specialist, Mr Mtonga, for a faulty roof, in front of a senior inspector. He immediately knew he had been wrong to humiliate Mtonga in front of the inspector. But it took Craig three days to sum up the courage to apologise to Mtonga. Mtonga, nonetheless, accepted his responsibility and Craig’s apology had helped to build the trust between them. At the end of his contract, Craig’s position was taken over by a Zambian graduate who told him, "We have grown together technically but we have also grown together spiritually."

Craig’s second experience was when he and his wife had to chose between two job offers at short notice, one with the World Bank in Nigeria and the other with the UK’s Department for International Development in Nepal. They were much more attracted to the latter, but realised that they had had to "get rid of our personal preferences and be free of them" in order to find "God’s plan". "It very quickly came clear that we should go to Nigeria." They spent four years there and, though conditions were tough, they "never once regretted the decision".

His third experience was in Papua New Guinea, where he worked on a crocodile farm with 400 employees and where relations between the farm workers’ union and the employers were "diabolical". Craig said that the head of the union "didn’t trust me". This was compounded by the President of the Trades Union Congress, Laurence Titimur, who initially was very hostile but later apologised to Craig, following their first encounter at a party where Titimur was "seriously drunk". The trust and respect which grew between them was important as Craig was determined to introduce fair working practices and a wage agreement. "It took nine months and several strikes" to implement, but it was "the first agreement in Papua New Guinea endorsed by the TUC".

Declaring himself a free marketeer, Craig said that protectionism in the European Union and America "does not help world development". "The protectionist lobbies are self-serving". Africa, in particular, needed free access to European markets for its food produce. He welcomed International Development Secretary Clare Short’s recent white paper on globalization, promoting fair trade policies. "Europe," said Craig, "is two faced: the major donor of development aid but also the originator of the most restrictive tariff barriers."

Craig concluded that "if you embark on a life of faith and purpose you fall often. Therefore it is important to have a partner who helps you get back on track." His wife, Marguerite, teaches four-year-old children who have to learn numbers, the alphabet and "how to share the biscuits". Each generation of the world "has to keep learning those basic lessons", Craig commented.