When fertilizer prices doubled in the mid-1970s, he studied the worldwide supply and demand of petroleum, and predicted that prices would continue to rise for decades to come. Realizing that over a billion of the world’s poor were dependent on fertilizer, he began to study alternatives. Compost is too labor-intensive for use on basic grains, and smallholder farmers have too few animals to produce enough manure. In 1976, he began experimenting with gm/ccs and studying scores of them in around 50 countries.

In 2010, he was hired to visit programs in 6 African countries to advise them on improving their impact. Though the droughts were due in part to climate change, he realized that by far the most important cause was the dwindling organic matter content of the soil. Within a year, he would move to Africa to tackle the impending disaster.

In State of the World, 2011, Roland predicted that a “Great African Famine” would kill tens of millions of people if the problem were not addressed immediately. Very few people believed him then.

Roland has done consultancies on agricultural extension in over 50 nations for the Ford Foundation, Cornell University, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam, 5 governments and more than 60 other NGOs. He has been nominated for the Global 500 Award, the End the Hunger Prize of the President of the United States, and the World Food Prize.