Crowd Farming – Is The Philippines Ready For It?

William Dar writes, "Is PH Agriculture Ready For Industry 4.0? Part 2" (02 May 2019, Manila Times, manilatimes.net). Here, he reiterates what he has written in that earlier column (Part 1); here, I refer to Industrial Revolution 4.0 as iR4:

I suggest four approaches in "technologizing" agriculture under (iR4): producing differently using new techniques; using new technologies to bring food production to consumers; increasing efficiencies in the food chain; and incorporating cross-industry technologies and applications.

I have accepted and written about the 4 (see my earlier short essay, "PH Agriculture: Is Modern Technology The Answer? No, It's Modern Thinking!" (26 April 2019, Manila Times, blogspot.com). I was trying to say, "Use systems thinking!"

Here comes Mr Dar advocating among other things, crowd farming – I'm a wide reader, but this is the first time I heard of it. (Above image of the concept of crowd farming is from bing.com.) He says of it:

For food sharing and crowd farming, technology has enabled communities to share their goods and services, resulting in minimum or zero food wastage. Ride-sharing and house-sharing are already industry norms, and the application of technology in farming can result in food-sharing and crowd farming.

CrowdFarming says about it (ANN, undated, crowdfarming.com):

(Crowd farming) is a new, transparent and sustainable way to source your food: adopt a tree, an animal or part of a garden, receive fresh food cultivated just for you straight from the farmers and help fight food waste.

And here is crowd farming in Africa (undated, penfieldpoultry.com):

South Africa is one country which does not produce enough chicken to supply its mass market. This has made us dependent on dumped chicken and because of this, Open Field (Poultry) has launched a (simple) crowd farming platform which allows anyone an opportunity to contribute meaningfully to ensuring we produce enough chickens locally while investors make substantial amount of profits in a short term.

Now then, since I have just written before this the short essay, "Farmer Neglect – Blame Not PH Govt But The University Of The Philippines!" (02 May 2019, Journalism for Development, blogspot.com), I am going to recommend that our alma mater UP Los Baños study the concept.

On second thought, how about crowd farming being modeled for Southeast Asia through graduate study conducted in the name of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture, SEARCA?

There is a new SEARCA Director, and I know he is a friendly fellow and intellectually inquisitive: Glenn B Gregorio, who is a TOYM awardee and an Academician (a member of the prestigious National Academy of Science & Technology). Before this assignment, he has been an internationally well-positioned  rice scientist in South and Southeast Asia, the Latin Americas, and Sub-Saharan Africa, Mr Gregorio is an all-UPLB guy: BS Agriculture, MS Plant Breeding, and PhD Genetics. For more on him, read "Eminent Rice Scientist And Academician Appointed New SEARCA Director," Seameo SEARCA,  searca.org.  The acclaim in that headline is much deserved, if you ask me.

Naturally, you can include me in the crowd for crowd farming!517