November, Be RiCEPONSiBLE. Be aware! For one, we never taught our PH farmers how to make choices – only to follow us. We know at least down to #4 below, but we do not teach farmers so that their farming is as a whole:
(1) Technically feasible;
(2) Economically viable;
(3) Socially acceptable;
(4) Environmentally sound;
(5) Rewarding market-wise.
If you read upward the acronym of those 5, it is RESET – with this new 5-Point Star Awareness For Agriculture, we can pursue Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie's immediate Vision as a reset of PH Agriculture into "Masaganang Ani, Mataas na Kita" (High Harvest, High Income).
In the star image[1]above, the 5 parts flow into each other smoothly, characteristic of the new awareness for agriculture, thus defining a whole, signifying holism:
The Whole is greater than the Sum of Its Parts.
(1) Technically feasible
Farmers keep on growing rice the way they used to, like transplanting month-old seedlings. They could save money and increase the yield of their rice by transplanting very young seedlings that recover very quickly.
Also, our farmers plant rice seedlings in hills too close to each other for optimum growth of roots. If they planted hills wide apart, single seedlings, each hill will grow faster, grow more tillers, and yield more. We must teach early adoptor farmers the System of Rice Intensification!
(2) Economically viable.
Most of our farmers follow chemical agriculture without counting total financial cost. That is because they borrow money and do not worry about how much they have to pay in terms of interest until the next harvest – bad habits die hard.
(3) Socially acceptable
A rice combine harvester is not socially acceptable to those whose harvesting hands it replaces – so farmers tend to reject the machine for their sake.
(4) Environmentally sound
No, our rice farmers are not aware of the environmental effects of how they grow their rice. Thus, they happily maintain their fields flooded from beginning to almost harvest time. For instance, I have yet to read of any farmer applying what IRRI calls Alternate Wetting & Drying, AWD, of the ricefield[2]. AWD is as intelligent as it can get in saving irrigation water.
(5) Rewarding market-wise.
This has never been taught to farmers. This is the sphere where our ignorant farmers are always the losers and the knowledgeable merchants always the winners.
Well, usually, the merchants are the ones who lend the farmers money always in their own usurious manner. When harvest comes, the merchants are winners in 2 ways:
(1) They get their money back (loan) plus interest, 20%. "You owe me P10,000, you pay me back P12,000 in 100 days."
(2) They get much more by paying the farmers the lowest price that they can get away with, pleading that it is the current "market price" – not explaining that the market price is what merchants dictate!
National Rice Awareness Month – There is so much our rice farmers should be aware of. For their own sake, for their families!@517
[1] https://moddroid.com/hotstar.html
[2] http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/training/fact-sheets/water-management/saving-water-alternate-wetting-drying-awd
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