Healthy Farms for Healthy Foods

Today, Friday, 30 October 2020, some 48 years after Martial Law, someone sent me a Facebook PM on “‘Marcos’ M-99 A Failure’: Perfect Illustration Of The Yellow Mindset [1] ,”  the column of Rigoberto D Tiglao that appears in the 03 June 2020 issue of the Manila Times.net . Now that I have read the whole column: I am reminded where the farmers failed Masagana 99! And I don’t want that to happen to the New PH Agriculture under Secretary of Agriculture William Dar. (1)    Yes, Masagana 99 succeeded for PH rice farmers. (2)    Yes, (some) PH rice farmers sabotaged Masagana 99! Mr Tiglao says: The claim that the dictator Marcos’ Masagana 99 (M-99) program was a total failure is an excellent example of the Yellows’ invented, Manichaean narrative of that era – that it was the country’s Dark Age, that absolutely nothing good came out of it. Mr Marcos declared a land reform program, whereby all lands of 5 hectares or more owned by a single individual were put under control by the governme

Some contestants claimed loudly that  Miss Iloilo Rabiya Mateo did not deserve  to be the new Miss Universe Philippines. Grapes. I write to prove to you that she well deserved the title! The Miss Universe Philippines finals was held 25 October 2020 in Baguio City at the Baguio Country Club (ANN, 27 October 2020, “Rabiya Mateo Addresses Post-Coronation Intrigue: 'I Need To Focus On My Real Goals ' [1] , ” Rappler.com ). During the event, there was zero audience, following lockdown protocols. In a TV 5 interview with MJ Marfori aired Monday, 26 October, “Rabiya defended herself and said the controversies were painful, but she decided to take the high road.” At the end of the day, this is a competition. And being the bigger person in the picture, I need to understand where they are coming from. That’s what a queen should do and (how she) should act. She understands that when you aim high and fall short, you feel frustrated – and you look for excuses. And naintinidhan ko na

Where is regenerative agriculture in the above photograph?  (imag e [1] from PhilStar.com ) The term was invented by the Rodale Institute of Pennsylvania in the 1980s (Heather Hansman, “Why You Need To Know About Regenerative Agriculture [2] ,” Outsideonline.com ). Miss Heather says: It means that farmers rotate and diversify crops and animals, don’t poison lands and water, and minimize tilling and soil disruption. Over time, those practices have been shown to make land more resilient and more productive – and able to hold more carbon and water. About crop rotation, my father Lakay Disiong used to plant mungbean after rice, because he knew that the legume will enrich the soil somehow. Likewise diversification of crops: I know the growing of several crops and growing them simultaneously in a wide field results in the elimination of pests and diseases – balance of nature. You do not need to apply poisons because your crops are healthy. Likewise raising crops & livestock at the

Things fall apart. Tumumba halos lahat ng sweet corn namin. By batch sana ang harvest, a lot of them are still immature.  (All our sweet corn plants went down. We were planning to harvest by batch.) Today, Tuesday, 27 October 2020, here is Earwin Belen sharing a Facebook sharing by Tonio Flores, all below in italics, in Taglish, on a current crop that went down with that typhoon (not named) that got away (PH, exact location not stated). Tonio, typhoons are realities we cannot ignore. If not now, then. (Tonio does not volunteer the size of the cornfield. It must be big because he is bothered by the damage.) Proud pa naman kami sa production methods nito. We were very mindful of environmentally sound pest control methods, crop nutrition etc. That's more than two months worth of hard work and resources. (Too, we were proud of our production methods.) Tonio, sometimes Mother Nature destroys our best works. “The best plans of mice and men.” The one environmental thing you were not mi

“The Philippines could be rice sufficient by 2020.” That would have been via hybrid rice,  but that Incredible Dream just died. The romantic novel For Dreams Must Die was written by Zoilo M Galang [1] about PH national hero Jose Rizal and Leonor Rivera, his/her first love. They were cousins, and love was mercilessly killed – he went to Europe to study cultures other than Filipino, and her parents married her off to a foreigner, a railroad engineer. She died pining for his love; he died with love pining for his country. For dreams must die is the exact if unintended story of hybrid rice in the hands of the Hybrid Rice Development Consortium, HRDC, an organization attached to IRRI that “promotes innovation and access to new germplasm and information on hybrid rice technology [2] .”  Today, Monday, 26 October 2020, on my composite image above, on the HRDC webpage still appears “The Philippines could be rice sufficient by 2020” – the HRDC needs a magnificent new dream!  (The HRDC also n

Now then, I am 100% sure that the  next Miss Universe proclaimed  will come from the Philippines:  Rabiya Mateo of Iloilo City. High IQ –  She is 24 years old, 5 foot 6, licensed physical therapist, and graduated  cum laude  (with honors) from the Iloilo Doctors Colleges [1]   (Eton B Concepcion,  manilastandard.net ). She is Miss Iloilo 2020 . Her name  Rabiya  means  queen [2] ; so she is the rare royalty with the high IQ. (above left image. with face masks [3]  f rom  Preview.ph , right image [4]   from  Rappler.com ) Pretty face   – Rabiya’s father is Indian, mother Ilongga (no names that I saw). Her dad left them many years ago, no reasons I can find, so I guess “Mateo” is actually the mother’s surname, for convenience. From the limited top-down view of a photo that Rabiya has shown, he looks good-looking, hence the beauteous daughter. How does a daughter grow up without a father figure? Well, Rabiya triumphed! Pulchritudinous Body  – “ Pulchritudinous ” means “having great physic

You want to learn creative thinking leading to creative writing? Or you want a different kind of Editor? Try me, original Ilocano aboriginal. This is a guru of 45 years speaking. This is one way I can celebrate my 80 years, plus 1 month, of being me, thank God! Just read. Here’s the me you probably don’t know who can help you in your Journalism for Agriculture – read on, this is free! Today, Saturday, 24 October 2020, this brainstorm has been triggered by the Facebook sharing of Bruno Martinuzzi, “Virtual Brainstorming Tips And Tricks [1] ”  (22 October 2020, MindTools.com ). Too bad, in group brainstorming, Mr Martinuzzi differentiates virtual brainstorming from in-person brainstorming – that’s artificial. I say, in brainstorming, there is a Team of a Group, and a Team of One. Me, I am a Team of One. And there is virtual proof of what I am saying about myself. Since 2005, I have created more than 100 blogs of different fields. If you will visit one of my blogs, Creative Thinkering

Above are scenes in the Central Luzon Hybrid Rice Derby Field Day & Farmers’ Forum held 15 October at the Central Luzon State University, CLSU, campus in the Science City of Muñoz in Nueva Ecija (DA Central Luzon Facebook sharing 15 October 2020 by Rica Geda Salas). A total of 7 seed companies participated: Bayer, Bioseed, Corteva Agriscience, LongPing, SeedWorks, SL Agritech and Syngenta: The activity (aimed) to promote to the rice farmers the various cultural management (designs) and practices and the importance of using hybrid rice seeds in achieving a higher production volume as part of the (DA) Rice Resiliency Project of (the) Plant, Plant, Plant Program. During the Forum, DA Regional Field Office III Director Crispulo Bautista Jr said that during the dry season, average yields were: inbred rice 5.6 tons/ha, hybrid rice 7.8 tons/ha, a big difference of 2.2 tons. Now then, are hybrid farmers earning much more to make them happier than inbred farmers? Last year, 40 rice farme

Modular Learning is Out Of This World! My professional concerns, the State Colleges & Universities , are not alarmed – and they should be. This is a teacher speaking, UP ’65. (“Out Of This Worl d [1] ” image from Amazon.com ) Most of all, the Department of Education, DepEd, hell-bent on Modular Learning, should now wake up to the Truth Dragons stalking students, male & female! “Now that school and home are the same place” – to change that perspective, we have to change the way we teach . Modular learning assumes that the home is just another classroom, if individual. So, modular requires that students react as in a normal class, and that is insane! Modular is crazy! See the images above that I have composed. If you don’t see it at once, it works like this: On her own, the first girl, the one in the image I superimposed with the title “Out Of This World,” enjoys chasing dragons & butterflies: Girl Blissful. The second girl is intensely looking into the monitor of her

Young Miss Maeca Czarina Pansensoy – a graduate of Ateneo de Manila University in Business Management , with Honors (from LinkedIn ) – wrote Monday, 19 October 2020, an opinion piece, published by the independent-minded journalist group Rappler.com , titled “Palaging Pagod At Palaging Hirap: The Story Of The Philippine Farmer” (my translation: Always Tired & Always Poor ). Awkward . I call it “awkward” because it purports, without saying so, to summarize the life & times of Filipino farmers beginning we don’t know when – Miss Maeca does not preface title and first sentence with a time period of years. And she summarizes such life & times in only 460 words including title!? I think her first paragraph says it all for her thesis: Our farmers struggle with a history of injustice. They have been forced to till land they do not own, sell their produce at prices unequal to their labor, and carry a whole sector on their already aching backs – for a country that has forgotten

Is Du30’s record now richer with millions more of drug users listed? Yes, and No. About PH President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s War On Drugs, this time the war has the wrong numbers! (Bad Dat a [1] i mage from Amazon.com ) Sofia Tomacruz of Rappler.com has a story of data that are crazy the very first time you read them, as they don’t add up and the explanation given is quite another public embarrassment! Citing what he said were government figures, (President Rodrigo) Duterte said in a recorded address, “I’d like to report to you that according to the…DDB, Dangerous Drugs Board, there are about 167 million or two out of 100 people, Filipinos aged 10 to 69, (who) are current users of drugs.” The number of Filipino drug users has reached 167 million! Archipelagic mistake, because there are only a little more than 100 million Filipinos as of July 2020. If 167 million were correct, it would mean every Filipino is a drug user, plus 67 million foreigners in this country who are also all

The Gender Agenda:  Is Mexico another (developing) story? My country PH is a matriarchal society; the voice of the eldest matriarch is especially heard. But not in agriculture, because this one is more science than spirit or soul. The above photograph, from Mariana Gallardo’s article “Rural Development Must Be Feminist Or It Cannot Be ” (04 October 2020, PRiME Training), displaying Mexican women harvesting rice, with someone backpacking a baby – I say shows only paid labor, not inequality. Miss Mariana says, “To ensure sustainable rural development, it is essential that all rural development policies and programs (be) based on a gender approach .” I say, “Gender is a much limited view.” Following PH Secretary William Dar’s “The New Thinking for Agriculture,” it must be an inclusive approach . I say, “To ensure inclusive development, it is essential that all policies and programs be technically feasible, economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially acceptable.” Gender notwit

My coinage: Saka Gandahan has 3 meanings. (1) Farming made beautiful. (2) Then, make it beautiful. (3) In its beauty… In 2 words, Saka Gandahan is a summary of what I’m thinking of how to teach Filipino youth aggie entrepreneurship, one of the small/big dreams of PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar following his “ The New Thinking for Agriculture.” I explain below. The main image above is that of a long-forgotten Danish folk high school (photograph [1] from Projects Exeter ), vintage 1916. I myself had forgotten that I wrote about this type of school already 9 years ago (see my essay, “Reductionist, Long Education. The UP College Of Agriculture, 1909 [2] ,”  05 September 2011, A Magazine Called Love ). Today, I’m going to use it as a lesson for an aggie entrepreneurship course that can be offered via the State Colleges & Universities, SCUs, in the Philippines, numbering at least 100 [3] ( Wikipedia ). In my 2011 essay, I mention that at the University of Wisconsin, there