Is NSCC The Best Multi-Purpose Cooperative In The Philippines With Farmer Members?

The tree above (from coop-nscc.com) shows 10 branches where Nueva Segovia Consortium of Cooperatives, NSSC, is working/good at: microfinance, marketing, trainings, school, hotels & restaurants, coop capacity building, agriculture, social sciences, community organizing, and micro-insurance. 

Wow!

Why did I visit that website? I was reading today's Facebook post of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie:

We were at the Nueva Segovia Consortium of Cooperatives (NSCC) in Caoayan, Ilocos Sur with Ilocos Sur Governor Ryan Singson, Cong Kabsat DV Savellano, Caoayan Mayor Gemma Golart, and DA Region 1 officials interacting with rice and vegetable farmers.

Reading that comes to mind as an Ilocano son of a farmer – Ilocanos are rice & vegetable farmers. But perhaps, most Filipino cultivators of the soil are rice & vegetable farmers. Which means they are not monocultural with rice? Oh, they are, and that is where the problems come. The problems I see are that our farmer:

(1) Wastes seedlings
He does not transplant in squares, which maximizes & equalizes the area of growth of each seedling. He sticks 2-3 seedlings/hill.

(2) Wastes fertilizers
My father Lakay Disiong, almost 60 years ago, broadcast his fertilizer all over the field – and I did not know any better. He did not realize that he made the weeds happy too.

(3) Wastes pesticides
He sprays religiously – meaning to a schedule that he believes is good because somebody told him. My brother Emilio, also an agriculturist, instructed our father.

(4) Wastes labor
When transplanting, he does not use the transplanter. When harvesting, he does not use the rice combine harvester.

(5) Borrows from usurers
The worst thing that he does, and he does not realize how it impacts on his farming, is borrow from usurers, 5/6 – borrow 5K and pay 6K within one planting season.

NSCC is the most successful consortium of cooperatives I have ever seen. Is it even real?

Now, having seen my list above, I shall now apply Hilario's Original Farmer Help Test Question:

How many Nueva Segovia farmers are complaining that rice prices have gone down insanely?

(1) I expect many, if not all.

(2) I expect also none at all.

If my (1) answer is correct, it means 2 things. One, those Nueva Segovia farmers who are complaining are not selling to their cooperative. Two, they are typical rice farmers as I have described above.

If my (2) answer is correct, it also means 2 things. One, the cooperative is buying the harvests of its rice farmers and at a fair price, nothing to complain about. Two, they may still be typical rice farmers and their whole rice-based farming system needs improvement!

I think I want to visit the physical place, the NSCC Plaza at Caoayan, Ilocos Sur. Also get to talk with farmers and learn about their rice farming, what practical lessons I can pick up from them as an Agriculturist, UP '65, and as a crusading writer.

https://www.coop-nscc.com/#

I also would like to talk with the webmaster of that website – how the access could be improved, advice free!@517

DBM Releases P2.46 Billion For Rice Funding – The First Is Always The Best!

Yesterday, we were anxiously lost in paradigms!

Today, we are in awe in paradigms regained!

Billions, yes! The good news comes from the Office of Agriculture Secretary William Dar/Manong Willie. The DA Bulletin "DBM Releases P2.460 Billion For RCEF" says:

The Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) is now in motion with the release of P2.460 billion for two of its component programs.

The Department of Budget & Management (DBM), through the Agricultural Credit & Policy Council, released P244 million to the Development Bank of the Philippines and P180 million to the LandBank of the Philippines for the RCEF-Credit Program to be loaned out to individual farmers and DA-accredited cooperatives and associations.

For the RCEF-Seed Program, the DBM also released to the DA-Philippine Rice Research Institute P2.038 billion to promote, acquire, and distribute certified seeds of NSIC Rc222, Rc160, Rc216 and 16 other location-specific varieties in the region. Farmers listed in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) may now receive the seed support.

The 2 component programs of the RCEF now have seed money! These are the RCEF-Credit Program (P424 million). and the RCEF-Seed Program (P2.038 billion). (image of "budget" from bizmonthly.com)

So! The pesos will begin falling into places!

Following the roadmap advice of Manong Willie, we are now riding on the first bus travelling to the first paradigm. That:

#1, Modernization must continue.

So, a total of P424 million in loans will be going to deserving individual farmers as well as DA-accredited cooperatives and associations.

I say, "Wow!"

This will dry up the soil cultivated by the usurers and their 5-6 schemes in any manner, shape or form. Finally, the rewards of honest labor will go to the honest worker and not the dishonest merchant and the blood-sucking usurer.

Thank you, thank you for the RCEF!
Don't forget that RCEF means
Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund.

PH rice is forced to compete with imported rices from the Asean because they are much cheaper. Consider the costs of production:

PH: P12/kilo
Vietnam: P8/kilo
Thailand: P6/kilo.

How in the world can PH rice cost double Thai rice?!

That is why the #1 paradigm called for is: Modernization. Thanks to Manong Willie's Eight Paradigms for the New Thinking for PH Agriculture, of which I have produced a 269-page literary-literal ebook titled in paradigms lost, in paradigms regained (see below half of image). (You can ask for your free copy: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

Did someone remember to fund my favorite 2 programs? Yes.

Funds for the mechanization and extension services program(s) will be available soon.

Here are 4 wasteful practices of farmers that cost them much money without them realizing it:

(1) Transplanting rice helter-skelter.

(2) Broadcasting fertilizer by hand all over the field.

(3) Spraying pesticide by schedule, not need.

(4) Traditional harvesting and sun-drying.

The DA should insist on the non-observance of (1) to (3). For (4), the DA can schedule some combine threshers to be on call harvest-time.

Then, when we make PH farming rewarding,
our youth will want to engage in it big!@517

How Sharon Garin With Her Congress Team Can Legislate Well For The Coconut Funds

Charissa Luci-Atienza says "House Panel Forms TWG To Consolidate 16 Coco Levy Bills" (23 September 2019, Manila Bulletin, news.mb.com.ph):

The House Committee on Food and Agriculture formed Monday a technical working group (TWG) that would consolidate the 16 bills seeking the creation of the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund.

Whoa!
Ladies & gentlemen of the TWG, the creation of that TWG will still prolong the process of deliberations!

Here's why: Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie says you must develop the roadmap first! How can you know where to go and how to go without such a map?

Manong Willie has "Roadmap development is paramount" as #8 of The Eight Paradigms embodied in his "New Thinking for Agriculture" as his roadbook (my term) to the new PH Agriculture under him as Secretary of Agriculture. The lower half of the composite image above is the cover of my ebook, in Paradigms Lost, in Paradigms Regained, 269 pages, my literary-literal explanation and exposition of those paradigms. (Email me for a free ebook: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

Miss Sharon Garin, as Chair of the TWG, first you have to draw the Roadmap for the Coconut Funds, RCF, before trying to "consolidate" all those 16 bills – otherwise, you will literallyget lost!

Miss Sharon, you should now be convening your TWG and start working on the Roadmap for the RCF. It should have the following very important parts first: Vision, Mission, Strategy.

Vision

What do you want the future of the coconut farmers to be? Masaganang Ani, Mataas ang Kita. Plenteous harvests, plentiful gains.

Mission

How do you plan to bring that dream to reality? Develop the coconut industry in every region of the Philippines. Improve the growing of coconuts, not the least the yield/tree. Increase the number & variety of products from coconut, especially for exports.

Strategy

With private sector participation, fund R&D initiatives where there are State Colleges & Universities, SCUs. Form Citizen Councils for Coconut to advise on R&D, including to approve project proposals.

The Vision, Mission and Strategy, VMS, combined is an intelligent guide, not simply gut feeling, for incorporating some parts and not the others in all those proposed bills.

Get busy now with the VMS!

When you receive those agency submissions one after the other, you can easily judge those position papers within the scheme of the VMS of yours. Without meeting.

Your committee now awaits the versions. No, Miss Sharon, it is not the versions you should be comparing – it should be the Vision! Let's see those who have the good of the coconut farmers in their hearts.

No, Miss Sharon, you do not have to nervously await for the version from Malacañang to be issued. When it comes out, with the power of your VMS – you can finish with it in 5 minutes flat!

With that VMS, you can craft that single bill easily, and deliberate on it in the House fast, and answer all questions and remove all doubts easily. What's more, you will not be afraid of a presidential veto!@517

The Only Way To Learn To Write Is To Write. The Best Way To Become A Good Writer Is To Learn From The Best!

The 2nd time I saw this Facebook video post, "Tips From A 90-Year Old Woman" from Lifter UK, I decided to transcribe the whole thing – it's a total of 33 life tips, from "1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good" to "33. Believe in miracles." (You can email me for a free copy, frankahilario@gmail.com.)

Tip #18 particularly applies to writers: "A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write."

The only way to learn to write is to write!

You can learn on your own, as I did, inspired by so much reading of the classics and westerns in our library in high school at the provincial town of Asingan in Pangasinan, and so much inspirational writing in the Reader's Digest. I'm into non-fiction, so now I can quote Shakespeare or Lincoln in my essays!

The only way to learn to write is to write. Now, after teaching myself creative writing and becoming a computer nerd, I say:

The only way to write better is to rewrite!
Better with an Author's Editor.

If you want to learn more quickly how to write better, better get yourself an Author's Editor. And the fastest you can get? That's me! That is because I have been using the personal computer, PC, and Microsoft Wordearnestly in the last 32 years – I started with Word 4 in 1987; now it's Word 2013. This master says PC plus Wordis the best!

How much can you learn from me as a writer?
As much as I have learned as a creative writer in the last 45 years!

I have so far written and blogged at least 6,000 long and short essays totalling six million words (6,000,000), and no one has ever contested my 6-year old claim that I am the "World's creative genius online, most prolific writer of non-fiction. Frank A Hilario, Guru" (Creative Thinkering, https://creativethinkering.blogspot.com).

I thank God that at 79, I write even faster and deeper and more interestingly than ever before, and sometimes as funny as anyone can get!

You want to learn to write, or write better – this is where you need an Author's Editor – this is where you need me if you want The Best!

You can't find an Author's Editor like me. I can mentor you home-to-home – without either of us leaving the comfort of our home. There is email; there is Facebook. There is Blogger.com.

I will give you freeAuthor's Editor advice the first time – then you can take it from there.

You ask:
How do you write on a very difficult subject?  

My first advice is free – and here it is:
Ask by email a copy of my ebook in Paradigms Lost, in Paradigms Regained
where I wrote with humor and understanding on
the very difficult subject of Philippine Agriculture and
how to revive it, according to the scientific thoughts
of new Secretary of Agriculture William Dar.

The best way to learn is? From the best!@517

Geniuses Of The PH Coconut Authority Have Been Sleeping On The Job!

Not to mention the professors of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, those who are working under the Philippine Coconut Authority, PCA; not to mention the agriculturists who are journalists, including me. (buko image from foodevolution.com.ph) I have not heard from any genius in the PCA for a long, long time!

And now the new Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie is asking for your coconuts, gentlemen & ladies. In his column today, "Leveling Up The Coconut Industry," 1st of 2 Parts (26 September 2019, Manila Times, manilatimes.net), he's saying among other things:

(1) "Coconut water is one of the fastest-growing beverage categories in the global market," based on the report of the University of Asia and the Pacific, UA&P, and we have a village-level coconut water processing machine that could process 2,000 nuts into 2,000 bottles a day. So, Manong Willie asks, "What are we waiting for?!"

(2) Also according to the UA&P report, "Coconut water is one of the fastest-growing beverage categories in the global market." Manong Willie asks again, "What are we waiting for?"

(3) Also according to the same report, "exports of coconut milk powder has been growing by 38 percent per year on volume," with The Netherlands, Japan, United States, France and Australia as major markets. Manong Willie asks again, "What are we waiting for?"

More products? More income for producers. Manong Willie says:

I must emphasize, however, that as the exports for non-traditional coconut products like coconut water and powder (increase), there is a need for poor farmers to also enjoy the fruits of the harvest, or for them to earn more by including them in the value chain.

How about, Manong Willie says, Big Brother Companies working out business arrangements with Coco Cooperatives to help solve the poverty of these farmers?

Since 6 years ago, I have been campaigning for government to pay attention to multipurpose coops ("The Super Coops of 2014," Nagkaisa, nagkaisa.blogspot.com). That year in fact, I submitted a written proposal to the office of Senator Cynthia Villar – yes, I personally handed it to her secretary – and yes, nothing came out of it.

If we do not care about the 3.5 million coconut farmers who are among "the poorest of the poor," then we are the poorest of the poor!

Do not tell me that the PCA has been discouraged by persistent pest attacks, prevalence of typhoons, and very low copra prices.

Precisely! Where are the geniuses of the PCA when you need them most!?

For years, we had two neighbors, both males, wagon-selling their coconut meat and water everyday. Now they're gone; the house has been abandoned and now looks sad. If you cannot make a decent living out of fresh buko, how do you expect the coconut farmers to thrive from what they derive from the so-called "Tree of Life?"

I ask: "Where are the geniuses with their coconuts when you need them!" We have not been encouraging and empowering coconut farmers to do multiple cropping, so we geniuses are the lazy ones!@517

Primate Change For Climate Change – How Everyone Can Contribute, Not Only Greta Thunberg!

#YouGoGreta

Go for Climate Justice. We have to make the big ones pay big for their common crime against the Earth!

About climate change, if Greta Thunberg is right, and I believe she is, all those American activists' agenda – double-dealing public servants, transgenderism, abortion, border wall, gun ownership, illegal immigrants – are worth exactly nothing to be fighting for. Earthlings, we are going to lose this Earth!

"You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words," Greta told world leaders at the UN climate summit. Oliver Milman says, "Greta Thunberg Condemns World Leaders In Emotional Speech At UN," The Guardian (23 September 2019, theguardian.com). No Sir, the speech was emotional but the appeal was rational. Her speech was "very emotional (but) grounded in science", said Alden Meyer, Director of Strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Right!

Hilda Heine, President of the Marshall Islands, said:

Other countries must follow our lead. Falling short will represent the greatest failure humanity has ever seen. The summit must be the moment we choose survival over selfishness.

At the UN climate summit, the US was not there, neither Canada nor Australia.

On Monday Greta joined 14 other children to lodge a formal complaint under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The complainants, from countries including Argentina, the Marshall Islands, France, Germany and US, assert that countries' failure to address the climate crisis violates the international convention. "Each one of us had our rights violated and denied, our futures are being destroyed," said Alexandria Villaseñor, a 14-year-old from New York.

Thunberg said that world leaders were endangering children by ignoring climate breakdown. "They promised to protect the rights of the child and they have not done this," she said at a media conference at the offices of Unicef.

This 79 years old leaves Greta and the young ones to fight the old ones in the courts of the United Nations.

In the meantime, I'm taking a different tack – for senior citizens of the world.

12 years ago, I wrote, "Primate Change? Or Climate Change? You Choose! – The Blogal Village Voice" (03 March 2007, iCRiSAT Watch, icrisatwatch.blogspot.com). This is what I said:

The only way to combat climate change is Primate Change – man has to change his attitude, from one of indifference to concern, and from concern to concerted action, about greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere that deflate the ozone layer and cause global warming. If that primate change has to begin with you, just do it!

Today, my strategy is simple:

Green Earth Today!
GET it?

We just need to Green Earth Today – every bare patch of soil must be green. Instantly, we will see the Earth breathe!

Easy. If 10 million people in each country each planted 10 seeds and watered them, in 2 weeks we should have at least 50 million seedlings happily waving 20 green leaves to the sun – and cooling the Earth!

No need to quarrel with Donald Trump. Plant your green today! You are saving the Earth today!@517

Bagsakan – Defeating The Merchants At Their Game

Above, that bagsakan, drop-off center for farm produce, is in Villasis along the national highway and at the end-point of the Asingan-Villasis road (image from amaialand.com). I selected it because I am a native of Asingan, son of Lakay Disiong, a rice and vegetable farmer who did not enjoy the benefits of a bagsakan. My mother Baket Satur and others would travel with their large woven bamboo baskets (tiklis) full of eggplants and/or tomatoes to Divisoria to sell, riding hours & hours uncomfortablyon top of those baskets carried by a truck. I see bagsakans are Heaven-sent!

Most accurately, the new head of the Department of Agriculture, DA, William Dar/Manong Willie translates "bagsakans" as "wholesale drop-off points" (19 September 2019, "Attracting more young blood into agriculture." Manila Times, manilatimes.net). Note, wholesale, which guarantees that you can buy cheaper at the bagsakan than elsewhere. The bagsakan, says he, for the farmers has "expanded their markets beyond the usual middle man." Yes Sir, the bagsakan serves both the farmers and the consumers at the expense of the merchants – the farmer receives an advantageous amount for his produce and the consumer buys at an affordable price. Heaven-sent!

The news is that "DA, FTI, DILG Sign MOU To Institutionalize Direct Market Linkages For Farmers" (Susan G De Leon, 16 September 2019, PIA, pia.gov.ph). FTI is the Food Terminal Inc; DILG is the Department of Interior & Local Government; MOU is Memorandum of Understanding. The signing was on 13 September in Taguig City. The MOU is actually for the establishment of "Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita." Kadiwa is the brainchild of President Ferdinand Marcos; ka+diwa, shared spirit. From the new DA slogan, "Masaganang Ani, Malaking Kita" as offspring, "Ani" and "Kita" have been personalized by Manong Willie. So, "Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita" is a reference to smart consumers ("Kadiwa") and prosperous farmers ("Ani at Kita") in a single government initiative. Clever!

Kadiwa/Bagsakan provides direct and increased market linkages – for producers (farmers and fishers) as well as consumers (any Ani or Kita who wants to buy farm or fish produce at reasonably low prices.) Yes, you must consider that the bagsakan actually pays much higher than the merchant who always wants to make a killing at the expense of food producers and consumers!

(The bagsakan is part of the modernization of agriculture that Manong Willie has in mind; it is part of the #1 Paradigm ("Modernization of Agriculture") of The Eight Paradigms embodied in his "New Thinking for Agriculture" as his roadbook (my term) to the new PH Agriculture under him as new Secretary of Agriculture. The lower half of the composite image above is the cover of my ebook, in Paradigms Lost, in Paradigms Regained, 269 pages, my literary-literal explanation and exposition of those paradigms. Email me for a free copy: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

Manong Willie said, "Through Kadiwa – now anchored to 'Ani at Kita' – we can be sure that farmers get the best prices for their goods, while providing affordable, safe, and nutritious food to the consumers."

Me? Kadiwa ako. I share all that spirit!@517

If You Use Microsoft PowerPoint, Wake Up! An Editor Of Inc. Decries Its Use

Among presentation apps, is PowerPoint the best or the worst? 

Geoffrey James, Contributing Editor of Inc., says "Harvard Just Discovered That PowerPoint Is Worse Than Useless" (09 August 2019, Inc., inc.com, where the image comes from).

Ah, Mr James, the iVirtual Guru says what you said is baddest. "Worse than useless" is an exaggeration. But "useless" is correct if you do not really know how to use PowerPoint – and it seems to me, Sir, you do not know!

Mr James says:

Intuitively, we all know that PowerPoint is a horrible time-suck. (Admit it: don't you groan inside when the first slide pops up?) And anecdotally, the world's top entrepreneurs (like Jeff Bezos, Jack Dorsey and Mark Cuban) avoid it like the proverbial plague.

1st sentence: Correct! Because people make it too detailed.

2nd sentence: The presenter has not learned any better! That is why I have written this.

3rd sentence: Those bozos do not know how to use PowerPoint properly! I repeat: That is why I have written this!

Essentially, PowerPoint is not for making slides – even if that is all people know about it.

Essentially, the way people treat "slide" is that it is fixed, static, something to read out loud by the presenter, and to read silently by the audience.

Both attitudes wrong!

PowerPoint being good or bad depends on how you use it.

Mr James says, "Intuitively, anecdotally, and scientifically, PowerPoint may be the worst business tool ever created." That, Mr James, is the worst thing that has been said about PowerPoint, and I am neither a Microsoft investor nor a PowerPoint user.

The thing is, Mr James, you and the Harvard researchers know only what PowerPoint is bad for.
You do not know what PowerPoint is good for!

What people use it for is the same way we used the old slides, those ancient images each with a frame. We are in the Digital Age; we have a modern app, but our application of it is still ancient!

So that you do not have to read your own slides yourself, practice your presentation so that you get to master it!

Mr James says John Sweller says "showing audiences the same words that are being spoken reduces, rather than increases, audience comprehension." Precisely, Mr James – current PowerPoint presentors are robots! Not making powerful presentations.

Never mind the bells & whistles of this Microsoft app – what is the best use of PowerPoint?

Dramatize the texts: Like present one after the other and they slideinto one slide.

Dramatize the images:Like the pieces slowly make a big pie or something.

It is not the texts that move into each other's presence; it is not the images that collect into one greater image. The essence of PowerPoint is in the name itself:

To make a powerful point!
Actually, to make powerful points, plural.
Like the image I pasted on the main one.

People, now then, let me help you make a powerful PowerPoint presentation. Email me: frankahilario@gmail.com. First email advice is free!@517

Piñol's Complaint & Command Responsibility On The Asian Swine Fever Outbreak

On his Facebook page today, Tuesday, 24 September 2019, ex-Secretary of Agriculture Manny Piñol comes out firing loaded words: "Stop The Blame Game; Work, We'll Help You!" He says:

Yesterday, I received calls from the media asking for my reaction to the statement issued by the new Agriculture Secretary William Dar blaming me for the outbreak of the African Swine Fever in Luzon saying it started appearing in May of 2019 but the DA under me did nothing.

Nope! This is what Secretary Dar said, according to ANN (Author Not Named, 24 September 2019, "Piñol Blasts 'Blame Game' In African Swine Fever Outbreak," ABS-CBN News, news.abs-cbn.com):

Ewan ko bakit di sinasabi... August 5, wala pang incident report, pero marami nang feedback informally na mayroon nang obserbasyon ng mga nagkakasakit na baboy.

(I don't know why they were not telling… August 5, there was no incident report yet, but there were already many informal feedbacks that observations have been made on swine getting sick.) My translation

Monday, August 5 was the date of first report of William Dar as new Secretary of Agriculture. If there were no reports, the Bureau of Animal Industry, BAI, was not fulfilling its command responsibility of checking out the veracity of "informal feedbacks" – those from which reporters stood nothing to gain from reporting such. And it was the command responsibility of the DA, the mother agency of BAI, to check with BAI. Under Secretary Piñol, BAI and/or DA failed in fulfilling its separate command responsibility! (Image above: google.com)

If Secretary Dar did say those 25 words quoted above, in Tagalog, he was taking command responsibility that others before him failed to take! That is a good public servant to me.

"I don't know why they were not telling…"

Is that an outright accusation? Is that William Dar blaming Manny Piñol "for the outbreak of the Asian Swine Fever in Luzon"?

The new head of the DA is only saying there has been failure of the old DA in taking command responsibility early enough over the Asian Swine Fever disease of PH pigs to have contained the disease before it could develop into an outbreak and kill thousands of pigs!

In the Tagalog quote above, if the BAI took command responsibility and checked out the reports, and took actions necessary, this could have prevented the spread of the disease.

Mr Piñol, with DA under you, there was a failure in command responsibility of BAI, which means it was a failure in command responsibility of the agency overseeing BAI, which is DA.

Mr Piñol says, "The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) had not recorded or reported to the OIE or World Animal Health Organization any incidence of ASF outbreak in May, June or July. Look at the map above again; it reports worldwide outbreaks June 2018-July 2019 -no reports in the Philippines. The ASF was already worldwide. The BAI was not, the DA was not monitoring. Why not? Command responsibility! Forewarned is forearmed!@517

iVirtual Guru – Frank A Hilario Teaches You Organic Farming You Do Not Appreciate!

In the above image, shared on Facebook, PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie spoke at the 6th Regional Cordillera Organic Agriculture Congress at the Benguet Agri-Pinoy Trading Center, BAPTC, in La Trinidad on Friday, 20 September 2019. Among other things, he was saying: 

Ako ay sumusuporta sa paglago ng Organic Agriculture dito sa bansa. Ang hiling ko lang, huwag nating gawing isang relihiyon ang Organic Agriculture.

(I support the growth of Organic Agriculture here in the country. My only request is we do not make a religion out of Organic Agriculture.) My translation.

"We do not make a religion" – I suppose Manong Willie is referring to fanaticism, where people claim that only organic agriculture will save the country, not to mention resolve the climate change crisis.

Funny, but I Frank A Hilario am the one who first brought attention in the Philippine Islands to the concept of organic farming already being contested in the United States, through the books of Edward H Faulkner, Plowman's Folly (published 1943), and Soil Development (1952), a copy of each which I found when I ransacked the open shelves of the UPCA Library. I have never been afraid of new ideas. I introduced it in the student paper Aggie Green & Gold of the University of the Philippines' College of Agriculture, UPCA, sometime in 1966, when I was Substitute Instructor for Horticulture. But it did not take root. In 1968, I applied and was accepted for a teaching position at the Xavier U College of Agriculture in Cagayan De Oro City, and of course I wrote all 4 syllabuses of the Horticulture classes I taught: Floriculture(flowering plants), Olericulture(vegetables), Ornamental Horticulture(leafy ornamentals), and Pomology (fruit trees). For the record, one of my A students then, Nicanor "Nicky" Perlas, went on to win the alternate Nobel Prize called "Right Livelihood Award" and he remembers all too clearly and still has copies of those syllabuses. Nicky says, "Thank you for infecting me with organic farming."

Is organic farming a religion to me? Well, I do not try to tell people that it is guaranteed 100% to be their Savior!

Here is somewhat religion to me: At the lower half of the composite image above is the cover of my ebook in Paradigms Lost, in Paradigms Regained, 269 pages, my literary-literal explanation and exposition of Mr Dar's "Eight Paradigms" embodied in his "New Thinking for Agriculture" that is his roadbook (my term) to the new PH Agriculture under him as new Secretary of Agriculture. (Email me for a free copy: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

In fact, I have a version of organic agriculture that is 100% different from those organic fertilizer evangelists who more or less equate organic farming with the use of organic fertilizers. Organic fertilizers are not necessary in my kind of organic farming.

In my agriculture, either chemical fertilizer or organic fertilizer is an option, not a given; it is a choice, not a commandment. Instead of using fertilizers, I prefer to build the natural richness of the soil.@517

Wake up, PH Media, Farmer Leaders – Support The New DA, Not The Old Farmers!

Since time immemorial, 

you have been busy
Accentuating the negative.
Attenuating the positive!

Positive: To accentuate is to rub on to a bright polish.
Negative: To attenuate is to rub off the bright polish!

Old habits die hard. We have been warned by Gandhi: "Your habits become your values / Your values become your destiny."

Our mass media & leadership habits are why PH Agriculture has not emancipated the farmers from poverty!

Our newspaper columnists in their mother papers and farmer leaders on Facebook continue their old habits of informing on the negative and ignoring the positive.

Like today, Monday, 23 September 2019:

Ben Kritz:"Govt Losing The Game Of Rice – The Manila Times" posted by Leonardo Montemayor on Facebook.

Rappler: "Local Rice Farmers Are Suffering And Are On The Losing End Since The Implementation Of The Rice Tariffication Law." Posted by Rappler on Facebook.

My points exactly! This agriculturist knows farmers have been suffering even years before the Rice Tariffication Law because they religiously:

(1) insist on problematic technologies to grow crops.

(2) borrow from usurers.

(3) rely on merchants to sell their palay.

So, do not support the farmers!

Instead, support the new DA because it knows how to support the farmers all the way to Masaganang Ani At Malaki Ang Kita (plenteous produce, plentiful profits, my translation) in ways – plural – you do not know!

PH media and farmer leaders must now play their new but different roles when it comes to farmers, and not only rice farmers.

They must support The Eight Paradigms that the new Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie is proselytizing to bring about a new age for PH Agriculture!

Those paradigms are:

(1) Modernization must continue.

(2) Industrialization of Agriculture is the key.

(3) Promotion of export is a necessity.

(4) Consolidation of small- and medium-size farms.

(5) Infrastructure development should also be critical.

(6) Higher budget and investment for Philippine agriculture.

(7) Legislative support is needed.

(8) Roadmap development is paramount.

(Meanwhile, entertain yourself! The lower half of the composite image above is the cover of my ebook in Paradigms Lost, in Paradigms Regained, 269 pages, my literary-literal explanation and exposition of Mr Dar's "Eight Paradigms" embodied in his "New Thinking for Agriculture" as his roadbook (my term) to the new PH Agriculture under him as new Secretary of Agriculture. Email me for a free copy: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

If you want to support the farmers, support the new DA instead – because the farmers are religiously not supporting themselves! (Read again my listing above).

In his speech on Farmer's Day on 21 May 1982 (no title, officialgazette.gov.ph), President Ferdinand Marcos said (my translation):

We are listening to the requests of farmers that government take steps to solve the problem of income getting smaller amid production costs getting bigger.

2019-1982 equals 37 years at least that our farmers have been suffering! FM said: "The welfare of the farmers is the welfare of the people."

PH media and farmer leaders, we must learn – because our farmers have notlearned!@517