New PH Agriculture Calling For New Journalism – You Have A Volunteer Mentor, Frank A Hilario

Christmas is almost here, and I'm already celebrating 2019 as my most creative year in independent science journalism – especially dedicated to the new PH Agriculture under Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie. At 79, age doesn't matter if you don't mind!

I am not in the image above (a Windows 10 collage); I have no car; I have not won in a lottery; I am past retirement age at 79 – and yet:

I must thank God for the blessings that
my digital mind has afforded me.

Blessings?Not money. But of course there is wealth in there – a wealth of creative thinking that age has enhanced much. So now I can think of a new subject faster, grasp what is known better, absorb more and extract more insights, write and blog faster than you can say,

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

I'm exaggerating just a little.

Look, from 01 September 2019 to today, I have blogged (in iParadigm Shifts) 114 thought-provoking, Rip Van Winkle-waking, gender-respecting, mind-changing, highly original, serio-comic essays. These 13 are from September only:

(1) "What is Secretary William Dar Doing Today? Looking At Your Banana!" (01Sept19)

(2) "Paradigms! William Dar Is Waking Up FAO & PH Educators Mesmerized By School Gardens!" (02Sept19)

(3) "New PH DA'S Modernization Paradigm Calls For PhilRice To Grow Up, Not Only Grow Rice!" 03Sept19

(4) "Critics Of William Dar & The New PH Agriculture – How About Some Honesty & Humor!" 03Sept19

(5) "William Dar – The New Moses With The New Tablets!" 04Sept19

(6) "Rice Farming Is A Way Of Life? It Should Be A Way Of Hope!" 05Sept19

(7) "Rice Tariffication – If You Can't Solve A Problem, Change The Problem!" 07Sept19

(8) "PH Rice Crisis – 10 Ways To Discuss? 9 Ways To Disgust!" 08Sept19

(9) "DoST, Together We Can Teach On Terra Firma, Via Outer Space!" 09Sept19

(10) New Paradigm In Rice Farming. Patrick & Rachel Renucci Give Us "SciTech Rice." 10Sept19

(11) "FM & MLQ – About Nationalism & Development, Cup Half-Full & Half-Empty!" 11Sept19

(12) "What The New DA Needs Are Farmers As Partners, Not Protesters And Pessimists!" 14Sept19

(13) "79 at 17 September 2019. Thank You Lord! Reader, Here's My Birthday Gift To You." 17Sept19

Actually, in the last 91 days, I wrote an average of 5 essays every 4 days.

Where do I find the intellectual energy to do all that?

My blogging follows the efforts of Manong Willie
(unofficially) calling for a Renaissance of Philippine Agriculture.

I am Ilocano, but for inspiration & instruction, my universe is English.

So I'm volunteering as a mentor for the youth in the many State Colleges & Universities, SCUs in the Philippines, my Christmas gift to students in those institutions.

Youth, you can learn to write well as I can show you – I am self-taught myself. You will learn practicalcreative writing– no need for a formal course. SCUs, from Mariano Marcos State University in the North to Mindanao State University in the South: I am going to teach you if formally invited by your school. Email frankahilario@gmail.com@517

For PH Agriculture To Triumph Over Adversities, It Must Be Team Philippines!

Top half cover shown above, Team ICRISAT Champions The Poor is the title of my first book published in 2007 by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT; when PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie was Director General, DG, of ICRISAT. Why am I bringing it up? 

To give you a concrete idea how good a leader William Dar is.

William Dar was DG of ICRISAT from beginning of 2000 to end of 2014, that is, 15 years. That alone will tell you how excellent a DG he was – ICRISAT is based in India, and if I know the Indians, they are hard to please. In any case, when I became international consulting writer of ICRISAT in early 2007, based in Manila, Manong Willie had already
brought ICRISAT from summa cum maude (Ilocano slang for dead last) to #1 among the 15 international agricultural research centers composing the CGIAR group, which included the venerable IRRI.

Manong Willie is our #1 Team Captain when it comes to agriculture!

When President Rodrigo Duterte swore him in as Secretary of Agriculture on Monday, 05 August 2019, he was more than ready and more than eager. He says, "I knew very well the challenges that confronted the country’s farming and fisheries industry." He was more ready for PH Agriculture than he was when he became DG of ICRISAT – for his country, he brought in his "New Thinking for Agriculture."

In his column, he says that in his first 100 days, he set for himself 15 priority areas (shortened list here):

1. Rice Tariffication Law;
2. Crop Diversification Strategy;
3. Pantawid Magsasaka Program (cash gifts for farmers);
4. Entrepreneurship of small farmers and fishers;
5. Climate change and disaster risk reduction programs;
6. Assist the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in strengthening its agriculture and fishery program;
7. Introduce the “New Thinking for Agriculture” as the revised Department of Agriculture’s vision and mission to attain a food-secure Philippines teeming with prosperous farmers and fisherfolk;
8. Sustain a massive information and communication campaign;
9. Review DA programs and projects toward increasing productivity, competitiveness and income of farmers and fisherfolk;
10. Reshape and reprogram the budget of DA for 2020;
11. Partnership with state colleges and universities (SCUs) and the private sector, particularly in contract-growing and marketing;
12. Strengthen the organizational structure of DA;
13. Conduct a “Food Summit” with key stakeholders;
14. Coordinate/collaborate with the Department of Trade and Industry; and
15. Review restrictive and constrictive policies on agriculture, fishery, agribusiness, credit, among others.

He is only beginning!

Of course, he champions the poor. He himself came from a poor family in Ilocos Sur who could not afford to send him to high school. (His uncle did.)

Will PH Agriculture be #1 in the Asean within the next thousand days? That depends on the Team Captain – and The Team.

The public servants.
The business sector.
The people's organizations.
The farmers.

It must be a team effort.

It must be Team Philippines to win for The Philippines!@517

Sustainable Agriculture Begins With The Soil – Minimum Disturbance, Maximum Yield

You are looking at the upper half of the cover of SEARCA's first published Professorial Chair Lecture, by multi-awarded UPLB Professor of Land & Water Resources Engineering Victor B Ella, with the long title, "Conservation Agriculture: A Biological Engineering Approach To Sustainable Agriculture In Support Of Rural Development In Southeast Asia" published by SEARCA with 64 inside pages in 2018. 

Outright, I want to say this is the most intelligent research and report on what Mr Ella refers to a "conservation agriculture" that which I know fits perfect into what I believe is "organic agriculture" – with conservationreferring to the objective and organicreferring to the process.

In the Abstract, Mr Ella says:

Conservation agriculture... is based on the principles of minimum soil disturbance, continuous mulch cover, and diverse crop species rotation.

Without consciously realizing it, Mr Ella has defined the organic agriculture that I appreciate and advocate. As I put it in my title: "Minimum Disturbance, Maximum Yield." The continuous mulch cover provides the organic matter that the soil needs to provide water and nutrients to the crops. The diverse crop species rotated ensures both natural pest control and farm productivity – and therefore profitability – for the farmer.

Mr Ella says other researches in conservation agriculture, CA, in Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, "have provided empirical evidence on the benefits and advantages of conservation agriculture over plow-based crop production systems."

"Minimum soil disturbance" means no plowing, only boring a little hole for every little seed or seedling planted. And yet, as Mr Ella says, the results show that:

Conservation agriculture improves soil quality and crop yield, minimizes leaching of fertilizers and improves soil adsorption of nutrients, improves soil health, saves labor from land preparation and weeding, improves water use efficiency, and provides other socioeconomic and environmental benefits over plow-based systems.

Modern chemical agriculture, MCA, adds to the fertility of the soil but does not improve the quality of the soil. MCA improves crop yield but does not minimize leaching of fertilizer nutrients. MCA is labor-intensive because of land preparation and weeding. MCA does not improve water use efficiency.

It is unfortunate that Mr Ella's literature search is incomplete. I know 2 of the best sources of data and information that he does not include in his list of 42 References – and these are the books written by Edward H Faulkner, pioneering farmer of Nebraska: Plowman's Folly (published by the Oklahoma Press in 1945) and Soil Development (1952). Mr Faulkner's main thesis, in my own words, is that we must first grow the soil before we attempt and grow the crop, so that the soil can grow the crop well for our sake. He decried the use of the moldboard plow, which he said destroyed the structure of the soil first of all – why do you want to destroy the structure of what you want to use? Mr Faulkner's trash mulching gave a continuous mulch cover all over the field and, yes, he advocated multiple cropping.

For Sustainable Agriculture, I salute the biological engineers!@517

Want An ISI-World Class Journal? You Need An ISI-World Class Editor – Frank A Hilario

Above, the SEARCA Style Guide is a thick 100-page manual addressed to authors submitting their papers for publication by the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture, SEARCA. The Style Guide is formidable, even daunting – and very heavy, literally, as it has thick paper dividers with labels. I am an Editor in Chief many times over, but I am daunted by this Style Guide. This is the latest edition.

As an author of a technical paper, are you brave enough to open the pages of the Style Guide – 100 pages and there is no index for locating an instruction with its exact page to check with?

Being a practical man, what did I do when I was Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science, PJCS, the Journal of the Crop Science Society of the Philippines, CSSP? I wrote an entirely new Contributors Guidelines of only 2 printed pages, and that included how to format your References or Literature Review, a tedious process. I know. So what I did was I did the final formatting of those lists myself, never returning the papers for correcting their references notfollowing the guidelines. And I'm very fast, because I knew exactly how it should look like when printed – and I'm very fast when it comes to Windows and Microsoft Office apps.

And what happened when I did all that? Within 4 years, the PJCS became world class or listed in the elite international list referred to as ISI (now ISI/Web of Science/Web of Knowledge). And ISI is Heaven to journals and authors – they get international recognition, and if you are a faculty member of the UP System, you get a bonus of P50,000 for every technical paper you publish in an ISI journal.

Your journal is not for you; it is for authors. You have to help the authors in any way you can. After all, your journal owes its existence to authors! In short, when you are helping your authors, you are actually also helping yourself!

Now, you may say I am only talking about this to remind the world that I am a world-class Editor in Chief. Yes and No. I am writing about this because I want to help science bodies take maximum care of their technical publications, not allow them to wither and die.

As Editor, I am a digital surprise. I want to tell you that I have been using Microsoft Word as my desktop publisher in the last 26 years, and I have produced many books to show as proof of work.

Are you still publishing your journal using a desktop publisher that is as cumbersome as Microsoft Publisher, or PageMaker, or InDesign? Let this 79-year old help you!

To show how grateful I am to God as an Editor in Chief, for your group or office, including SEARCA, I am volunteering a full day's free lecture-workshop on technical writing, including desktop publishing a technical journal yourself. Email me if interested: frankahilario@gmail.com.@517

Senior AgriPreneurship, Yes? Some Ideas Don't Grow Old! Like Organic Farming

Under the new PH Agriculture, with Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie, one of the paradigm shifts is toward youth entrepreneurship in farming. Youth would mean not more than 25 years old, right? Manong Willie is thinking of funding each youth entrepreneur with P500 K to kick off a bright idea or something off the ground, literally.

To be fair – Manong Willie, how about cultivating us senior entrepreneurs in agriculture? I'm 79, and I have a bright idea of my own for a mini-max kind of farming: you know, minimum inputs, maximum outputs.

My bright idea has to do with a different kind of organic farming. No, it is not the organic farming you keep reading about in books, newspapers and even on Facebook. Except the name, this idea actually has been in my mind in the last 50 years or so; yesterday, when I saw the book published by the Asia Rice Foundation, ARF – see half of book cover above – I was reminded of it. It just so happens that the cover shows green and brown – nice metaphor for young and old.

I'll take the P500 K Challenge!

But first, let me talk more about the Asia Rice organic fertilizer book, a compilation of the papers presented in a 2009 Rice Forum organized by the Asia Rice Foundation  and sponsored by PhilRice and SEARCA.

The very title Revisiting The Organic Fertilizer Issue In Rice tells you that the Forum speakers and panelists were not 100% sold to the solo use of organic fertilizers on rice. In the very Foreword to the book by Ronilo A Beronio, Executive Director of PhilRice, the issue is presented in the paradigm of all-or-nothing. Says he in his last paragraph:

We are all for soil that can sustain the needs of our rice crop. We are all for sustainable farming. It's just that we have different formulas. Organic farming sure is a good way to go. But organic fertilizers alone are not enough to produce the food needed to adequately feed our people.

The problem with that paradigm is that to Mr Beronio, organic fertilizing equals organic farming, 100%. That is incorrect 100%.

Take it from me, the pioneer and prehistoric proselytizer for organic agriculture in the Philippines – I wrote about it in the Philippines Free Press when nobody else was talking about it. Indeed, I taught organic farming at the College of Agriculture of Xavier University in Cagayan De Oro City in 1968. How? I put it into my syllabuses in Horticulture – Floriculture, Ornamental Horticulture, Olericulture, and Pomology. (You can ask Nicky Perlas, Right Livelihood awardee, to show you his copies.)

Briefly now, my organic farming is the growing of the soil first– you must start with a rich soil and keep on enriching it even as you grow your crops.

I call my paradigm of organic farming Organic Mattering.

With P500 K, Manong Willie, let this senior AgriPreneur go out and soil his hands and prove he can become as rich as an organic soil in life!@517

Rice Self-Sufficiency Is Small Change – Food Security Is The Big Deal!

His paradigm shifted to the negative, Jasper Y Arcalas says in his latest report in BusinessMirror:"Rice Self-Sufficiency Rate Seen Dropping Further[1]." His story may be factual, but his assumption is frightfully wrong! 

Even if so – So what?!

Every single PH Secretary of Agriculture before William Dar/Manong Willie went after rice self-sufficiency – and of course they all failed. They did not know, or did not realize, that all the odds were against it. For one, PH has the highest cost of producing rice per kilo in the Asean:

PH P12/kilo, Thailand P8/kilo, and Vietnam P6/kilo – how can you compete when you cannot sell lower than your production cost?

How can you compete when
you are a good farmer but
you are a bad businessman?

More than 2 years ago, now PH #1 Farmer Manong Willie already saw the difference between food security and food sufficiency[2]. In his Manila Times column dated 27 October 2016, he noted that The Economist treated food security as the ability of a country to supply food for its population, notproduce it. And so Singapore was ranked as the most food secure in Asia! Manong Willie said, "And come to think of it  – Singapore imports more than 90 percent of its food needs."

Manong Willie noted that Thailand and Vietnam should have been ranked among the top food-secure nations "because they can produce more than enough rice for their populations." That is because rice is not the only food we need as a nation.

That is to say, you know bad economics if you
insist on food sufficiency as good economics.

So, if I may suggest, Mr Arcalas and/or the BusinessMirror should be coming out with a series of reports like "PH Food Security Rate Seen Rising Higher."

In the meantime, as I a science writer who is an agriculturist see it, PH farmers should be lowering their cost of producing rice for the market and at the same time growing food other than rice – all of which they can export and earn much more.

With the export earnings, we can then
import food for our people to eat.
That's called food security.
We cannot eat rice self-sufficiency!

And what does Manong Willie prescribe for food security?

Let us offer viable alternatives to help our poor farmers increase their incomes, giving them the purchasing power to afford and access quality and nutritious food, at all times. Growing high-value crops that have revenue potential  – such as palm oil, rubber, cacao, coffee, mango, pineapple, soybean, and cassava must be pursued with a clear roadmap and assured investment support. That way, farmers do not equate farming as a subsistence but (as) a business to grow and nurture.

In the inset image above, Manong Willie appears on the cover of the Ilocano magazine Bannawag, meaning dawn, a new morning. For their new mornings, what must dawn on our farmers is a business sense.

What our previous agriculture leaders – and reporters  –  lacked was a business sense. What goes around comes around!@517

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[1]https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/11/22/rice-self-sufficiency-rate-seen-dropping-further/?fbclid=IwAR0Qn
4Hb05bfp1hJOtt9zhfStw0H74c9j_d7GUL3k0iyIUS828RoW5UYksY

[2]https://www.manilatimes.net/2016/10/27/business/columnists-business/food-security-vs-food-self-sufficiency/293498/

Rice & Water – How To Look At A Problem 2 Ways & Miss The Point!

Up to now, amidst the crisis of rice prices, PH rice farmer leaders continue to blame the government, and continue to ignore looking for how they can help solve the national rice problem. 

These farmer leaders are repeating exactly the same mistake of looking at the problems of rice production as largely environmental and not technical, not in the manner of growing the crop, not even in the harvesting of the panicles and processing of the grains after harvest – exactly as foresters looked at it more than 12 years ago.

In the first paper presented in the book (image above from the book cover), Felino P Lansigan, Rex Victor O Cruz & Rodel D Lasco say in "Linkages Of Forest And Water Resource Use And Management To Sustainable Rice Production In The Philippines," page 11:

Much of the country's land resources exhibit various degrees and nature of degradation, largely due to adverse topography; climate factors, particularly excessive rainfall; soils that are prone to erosion; and inadequate land use policies. The obsolete policy framework for land use allocation and planning has aggravated the fragmented, inefficient, inequitable, and unsustainable use of land resources, with serious impacts on ecosystems, soil, water, biodiversity, and the poor and other marginalized sectors of... society.

To summarize the above and use it on the problem of rice production:

The problem with rice production is a combination of landscape, climate (especially lack of or excessive rains), eroding soils, and lack of land use policies.

No Sir! Landscape? The ricelands are there and there is nothing we can do about their locations. Climate: There is hardly anything we can do with the climate directly, but we can anticipate either the drought or the excessive rains. Let the Forest Management Bureau, take care of our forests – in the meantime, our farmers have to accept what the watersheds yield in terms of irrigation water.

And our farmers have to learn how to be efficient users of water.

On page 41 of the book, it is stated:

Lowland rice farmers continuously immerse rice fields in water throughout the season in their belief that rice thrives best under continuously flooded conditions.

The farmers are wrong in believing that rice thrives best when the field is continuously flooded. Flooding is disproved in the practice called System of Rice Intensification, SRI, developed by Jesuit priest Fr Henri de Laulanie. Having discovered Fr Laulanie's SRI in his research in Madagascar, Norman Uphoff has been inspiring the Cornell Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, USA to propagate the method throughout the world.

With SRI, "Rice Does Not Need Water[1]" according to an article by V Vinod Goud in DownToEarth. Actually, that needs editing; it should read, "Rice Does Not Need Flooding Water." Flooding is for controlling weeds; instead, if you rotavate them into surface mulch, you enrich your soil.

Under SRI, the yields are "almost double that of the conventional crops." (inset image above from Mother Nature Network[2].) What else do our rice farmers want?!@517

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[1] https://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/rice-does-not-need-water-10108

[2] https://www.mnn.com/leaderboard/stories/how-small-scale-farmers-are-growing-more-rice-with-less-water-and-fewer

Use Prezi Or PowerPoint For Your Presentation? Wrong Question!

Look at the fiery image (inset) of Prezi, which I saw on Facebook. Good imagery, bad connection; that's nothow a creative brain works! Look at the main image, my Windows 10 collage: that's how your brain works trying to create something. You need your creativity first, but Prezi ignores it and insists on its own!

"How the human brain works" –
Ha. There is no such thing as a Left Brain and a Right Brain –
That's a no-brainer!

But there is such a thing as critical thinking
and such a thing as creative thinking.
Yet Prezi does not mention either.

The whole claim to fame of Prezi is that, without mentioning & explaining creativity first of all, Prezi is like saying:

Prezi is creative for you, do not worry about it.
That's exactly why you should worry about it!

I have the privilege to say all that. I am the world's most creative writer online, non-fiction; my 5,000+ long essays uploaded in my many blogs since 2005 should prove my contention. (For some quick counts, search the Web for "A Magazine Called Love" and "Frank A Hilario" – including the double quotes.)

Than PowerPoint, Prezi claims being more organized, engaging, persuasive, effective. That is exactly the problem with Prezi: It organizes your thoughts when you do not yet have any!

"No need to start from scratch" –
That is the most anti-creative advice I have ever heard!

You do not have yet the foggiest idea what you want to say and yet you are supposed to be organizing the parts of your presentation already – just because Prezi is ready for you!

No, you are not ready to create a presentation until
you are ready with your main message,
and then the parts that contribute to that message.
Prezi does not know holism –  
The parts do not come first before the whole!

I should know. I worked as a copywriter for the Pacifica Publicity Bureau with Creative Director Nonoy Gallardo (husband of Celeste Legaspi) in the mid-70s, with the great mind of Father of Advertising David Ogilvy (British) on top of our heads.

Prezi's one-of-a-kind open canvas, smart structures, zoom reveal, free movement all make for an easy and enjoyable creation of a presentation – but that is Prezi's creativity, not yours! Prezi is spoon-feeding your creativity, not invoking it.

You, you have to start from scratch!

"Jump-start your awesomeness with these quick, simple ways to create your best presentations ever." But what is your awesomeness presenting except a collection of ideas and no common thread?

Because you have not settled on what is your main selling point!

Prezi even has what it calls story blocks, but it is not asking you to decide on your story first!

"Deliver stunning interactive visual experiences that let you adapt on the fly and zoom in on the topics that matter most to any audience."

Thank you, Prezi, but I have to start
with my main message, not
with you!

(If you need help making your presentation, email me: frankahilario@gmail.com. My first advice is free.)@517

"Research Utilization Is Important" – William Dar. Using Discovered Knowledge, Multiplying The Beneficiaries from 7 to 70 to 70,000

"There should be means in which we can really commercialize the results and lessons we have learned from CPAR," Department of Agriculture, DA Chief William Dar/Manong Willie was talking at the 4th National Community-Based Participatory Action Research (CPAR) Congress held end of October 2019 at the BSWM Convention Hall in Diliman, Quezon City. The Congress was organized by the Bureau of Agricultural Research, BAR, and the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture, SEARCA. The BAR is under the DA. CPAR is a program that has been pursued by the BAR in the last 20 years, and SEARCA researchers have been studying (a) CPAR's successes, to be used as guides to pursue similar programs elsewhere in the country, and (b) CPAR's failures, to prevent their recurrence. Funded by the BAR, the SEARCA study began December 2018 and will last until May 2020[1].

Commercialize the results – That was the challenge Manong Willie posed at the CPAR Congress. We will have to wait for the SEARCA report for our more enterprising scientists or private entrepreneurs to apply and/or improve on CPAR lessons.

"I am challenging CPAR," Manong Willie said. "Hindi na lang from 7 na naging 70, dapat from 70 magiging 70,000 na magsasaka at mangingisda ang makinabang. Ganoon po ang gusto nating makita," Manong Willie said. Not only 7 becoming 70, it should be 70 becoming 70,000 farmers and fishers benefitting. That is what we want to see."

The numbers count.So, after 20 years, how many farmers and fishers have benefitted from CPAR like Vicente Casas Sr from Zamboanga, a rubber plantation farmer, who has increased his profit margin; Sherlie Suniga from Ilocos Region, who has increased access to better trainings and farm inputs? If you have success, prepare to share them now!

The SEARCA research effort is in support of the BAR to be able to scale up and/or scale out tested technologies and farming practices. The study is for 18 months and is being carried out in field offices of the BAR, Bureau of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources, and the local government units that are implementing partners.

Yes, what they call "Community-Based Participatory Action Research," CPAR, is all new to me, who have been in and out and around as well as a wide reader on the theory and practice of agriculture since 60 years ago when I was freshman at the UP College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños. So, CPAR implementation in the field has been 20 years, and SEARCA is researching that. Such a study after 2 decades is rather late, but better late than never. Not only farmers but also researchers have to learn what they are doing right, and/or what they are doing wrong.

Even now, it can be asked, echoing the words of Manong Willie:

Will the Theory of Change as applied based on the CPAR findings help PH Agriculture commercialize the technologies & systems tested?

We hope that the answers are in the affirmative!@517

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[1]
https://www.searca.org/projects/technical-assistance/building-up-from-the-gains-lessons-from-and-improvements-for-effective-implementation-of-the-community-based-participatory-action-research-cpar-program

PH Agriculture: Rice Tariffication Is A Must, Farm-Based Exports Are More Must!

PH is a member of the World Trade Organization, WTO, and we have to follow the rules, or we are out of world trade! It is as simple as that. Following WTO, we had to pass the Rice Tariffication Law, RTL, whether we liked it or not. 

Farmer Leaders: If you are thinking only of rice, you are out of this world!

"Rice, Free Trade And Trade Wars" is today's Manila Times column of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie[1]. He points to the ongoing US-China trade war, but PH cannot afford any trade war, can we? Ah, Manong Willie says:

Free trade could also be the key to a country's progress,
if we strive to export more products.

As of now, we are thinking only of rice, and how the prices of unmilled and milled rice have fallen to desperate levels, brought about by rice importation as allowed and encouraged by the RTL. Now we look at the RTL as the Enemy of the Rice People. But in fact, as Pogo says:

We have seen the enemy, and it is US!

Not the United States, not China, not Russia – we Filipinos! Us! I blame it on our farmer leaders, whoever they are, as they think and talk only of rice, rice, rice.

See image above:Our farmers & their leaders do not think of farming as business, of other crops, partnerships – they think only of politics – they do not think distribution, access, corporate, borders, storage, investing. They do not think cooperation!

I quote again Manong Willie: "Free trade could also be the key to a country's progress, if we strive to export more products." We do not need food self-sufficiency; what we need is food security. We can import the rest of the rice we need, but we need to export some farm products as sources of funds: banana, cacao, coconut, coffee etc.

How much was our exports of finished products to 5 Asean member-countries Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam in 2018? US$10.70 billion!

Within the Asean, says Manong Willie, we are already exporting raw or processed rubber, tobacco & substitutes, cereal & flour preparations, sugar, fruits & nuts, dairy products, and animal & vegetable fats. Those exports come not from excess production but from entrepreneurial minds.

Our farmer leaders have always been complaining about farmers not owning the land they cultivate – with the assumption that they will work harder and better if they were landowners. No! That is simplistic thinking.

What our farmer leaders can do now is convince their followers to take advantage of the PH government's complete assistance package and become productive farmers and exemplary citizens, if uneducated.

In the meantime, Manong Willie quotes a NEDA study prescription for a rosy future of PH Agriculture:

The study notes the importance of schemes like land consolidation, cooperative farming, and machinery pooling systems that afford economies of scale and synergies to make the most out of agricultural resources while democratizing productivity gains.

Those gains will be the gains for all!@517

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[1] https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/11/21/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/rice-free-trade-and-trade-wars/657458/