In the second week of August this year, when a severe pest attack ravaged the coconut crop in Neil islands in the South Andamans, the villagers turned to scientists from the Port-Blair-based Central Agricultural Research Institute (cari) for help. But shouldn't officers of the agriculture department of the Andaman and Nicobar islands take care of such problems? They actually don't; so people in the South Andamans prefer getting their agriculture-related problems solved by cari scientists. This was not so till 2001. Till that year, the island's agricultural department supervised farming practices but did precious little to guide farmers. Such callous indifference nearly put paid to the islands' agriculture, with farmers