Doris Von Werner, former Senior Country Programme Officer at FAO's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, fondly recalls the moment when she first took charge of the administrative process to bring Kumar on board with the FAO Regional Vegetable IPM Programme way back in 1997. Kumar's outstanding contributions ever since towards the development of practical and effective vegetable IPM strategies, including for brinjal (eggplant), have had lasting positive impacts on the reduction of pesticide use and on the improvement of livelihoods of smallholders farmers in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR and elsewhere in the Asia region.