Healthy Farms for Healthy Foods

Thursday, 30 June 2022 is the last day of William Dar as PH Secretary of Agriculture – I, UP Los Baños alumnus, am unhappy to see him go. I blame the Extension People, mostly in the state universities & colleges (SUCs), led by UPLB, whose social media efforts are aimed mostly at campus visitors & passersby – the SUCs failed to appreciate and afterwards deliver the power of Mr Dar’s unprecedented & unparalleled legacy: “The New Thinking For Agriculture” (TNT for A). The SUCs misinterpreted that dynamite power! (top photo, cropped, taken by me 08 Sept 2018) “I have seen the future. It’s in my browser,” says Ben Watts of Challenge Advisory (13 Sept 2018); I say, to help people nowadays, you use social media, with which people can view and learn via cellphones only. My alma mater failing in social media in the last 20 years, I am not proud of UP Los Baños! (“Media” image from Challenge Advisory, challenge.org ) The so-called “Science Community of Los Baños” comprising of A

I being the Father of “Binhi Awards,” having observed published outputs of members of the Philippine Agricultural Journalists (PAJ) since PRRD appointed William Dar as Secretary of Agriculture in 06 August 2019, it saddens me that PAJ largely failed to act on Mr Dar’s “The New Thinking For Agriculture” (TNT for A) in the last 3 years! (Image source: “Binhi Awards” from DA, da.gov.ph ) For instance, I know that no member or group within the PAJ has come out clearly for farmers to cut costs by following one of the recommendations of TNT for A: “Consolidate operations.” I can explain such failure in 2 ways: (a) PAJ leadership has failed to imbibe the tenets of the “8 Paradigms” and (b) Department of Agriculture (DA) leadership itself has failed to educate PAJ members on TNT for A. (Image source: “Time to” from CFI, corporatefinanceinstitute.com ) To correct the double failure, I thought of a new encourager for the PAJ to learn more about old and new technologies and systems that m

Yes, with the change of administration, let us change our journalism! From the Private Bad to the Public Good. Jasmin Romero says, “UP Professor Urges PCOO To Issue Guidelines For Bloggers Covering Malacañang” (22 June 2022, ABS-CBN News , news.abs-cbn.com ). To incoming PCOO chief Trixie Cruz-Angeles , here is my advice: Accredit those who practice “BS Journalism” – not “Bullshit Journalism” but “Bright Side Journalism”– where Bullshit Journalism is always looking for the dark side. Meanwhile: Any PH billionaire, please fund a multi-million-peso “Noble Prize For Journalism (Peace)” juxtaposed to the “Nobel Prize For Journalism (Peace): Nobel Prize For Social Goof Vs Noble Prize For Social Good!“ The Philippines’ own Maria Ressa won the Nobel Peace Prize 2021 with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov   (The Nobel Prize, nobelprize.org ). Yes, s/he won for “BS Journalism, Bad Side Journalism.” Journalism must be for the public good! Above, Guy Berger says, “Journalism is a public goo

Finally, I old UPLB alumnus see the light! The problem is the Department of Agriculture (DA), not the Secretary of Agriculture, currently William Dar , who anticipates: “The DA becomes the topmost priority.” My greeting-advice to BBM is “AGBIAG KA!” acronym for “All-Around Generic Breakup Before Buildup of Institutions in Agriculture Allowing A1 Governance with Knowledge Keen & Administrative Acuity!” (top image, Facebook sharing of William Dar, facebook.com ; How do you solve a problem like DA? Look: The DA is a multi-headed hydra! Here are the lists from Wikipedia [“Department of Agriculture” (Philippines), en.wikipedia.org ], with my alphabetization – 8 regular agencies: Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), Bureau of Agricultural & Fisheries Engineering (BAFE). Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) Bureau of Agriculture & Fisheries Standards (BAFS) Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) Bureau of Fisheries & Aquatic Resources (BFAR) Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) Bureau

“Philippines: Agriculture is key to faster recovery and poverty reduction” – World Bank (09 Sept 2020, worldbank.org ). Inspired, here is my unsolicited advice to BBM: “Encourage PH mass media to mediate for Agriculture for the country’s progress!” Bad news. It takes a financial company in the City of Makati to remind us to be busily engaged “in nation building & making the Philippine economy competitive and resilient.” Our own mass media shun such news and views! (“Social media” image from iNigerian, inigerian.com ) About 8 AM Saturday, 25 June 2022, I browsed Facebook thoroughly for links to PH mass media in pursuit of progress. I found only 3 media posting, and niggardly on national development: Esquire Money Quoting Benigno S Aquino III: “All I can say is at the end of the day, when I go home and I’m about to sleep, if I look at myself in the mirror, I can honestly say that I did my all on that particular day. And each and every day, that is the mantra.” (I hope my ascendan

All over Facebook, the #1 website of Filipinos, media posts from the North (Ilocano) to lower Luzon (Bicolano) to the Visayas (Bisaya) to the South (Muslim), the news and views are mostly negative. I call it “Stink Journalism.” Mine is “THiNK! Journalism” – and here I volunteer from Asingan, Pangasinan, to help you, Sir Ferdinand “BBM” Marcos Jr, to think development & act positively! (Image sources: “CNN Live,” Yahoo!News , ph.news.yahoo.com ) ; “Positive News,” Favpng, favpng.com ) My advice is to fund a new media group whose outputs will soar above Stink Journalism – I call it “THiNK! Journalism,” the concept & term which I invented myself blogging about it almost 5 years ago, on 24 Oct 2017 (“THiNK! Journalism: Calling For Nobler Kinds Of People In Media,” Creative Thinkering , creativethinkering.blogspot.com ). Now then, BBM Sir, I urge you not simply to call for nobler kinds of people in media but to form a media group yourself, bloggers et al, with strict instruction

Given “The Marcos Formula” as reproduced above by Inquirer.net accurately states what BBM Sir you want done, in fact, you are dictating the process, not working the magic out! Bonar Laureto , a consultant of Deloitte PH for Sustainability and Enterprise Risk Management, among other things ( linkedin.com ), on Facebook 23 June 2022 writes on “The Marcos Formula” thus: The pricing and local sourcing rates that we are seeing are outcomes of a confluence of factors in a complex system dynamics. Solutions must therefore be structural beyond what [are] currently identified by our President and DA chief. “Confluence of factors in a complex system” – it’s not easy being a solver of national problems! To that I say, if you want to lower prices, do not look at prices only! Local consumers prefer imported rice because of 1. Quality issues of local rice and 2. [Local rice] is more expensive. Mr Laureto is talking about quality of local rice being sold in the market, not the rice being harves

Bad news about organic farming? The New York Times said last December: “Sri Lanka’s Plunge Into Organic Farming Brings Disaster” ( Aanya Wipulasena & Mujib Mashal , 07 Dec 2021, nytimes.com ). National disaster! Ted Nordhaus & Saloni Shah say, “In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong” (05 March 2022, Foreign Policy, foreignpolicy.com ): Faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, Sri Lanka called off an ill-conceived national experiment in organic agriculture this winter. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised in his 2019 election campaign to transition the country’s farmers to organic agriculture… Last April, Rajapaksa’s government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordering the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic. April 2021, Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa declared the national policy of 0% chemical agriculture (CA) and 100% organic a

I am confident these wide-awake dreams will come true: (1) “ P 20/kg rice” and (2) “Ang Bagong BBM” (Ang Bagong Balangkas na Bibliya para sa Magsasaka”), or “The BBM Digital Library,” a cellphone-ready knowledge source for highschoolers to visit and draw inspiration and instructions from science publications. Thank you Evelyn P Antonio for sharing this quote from an American hero of sociology, history, civil rights activism, and writing (Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org ): WEB Du Bois; I identify with his determination to fight for the “Prosperity Of A Nation,” even for his race, the American Black: We should measure the prosperity of a nation not by the number of millionaires, but by the absence of poverty, the prevalence of health, the efficiency of the public schools, and the number of people who can and do read worthwhile books. BBM Sir, as a BSA graduate major in Agricultural Education from UP Los Baños (1965), I am with you in agriculture even as I have been writing and fighting

About my blog-advice to PH Department of Agriculture (DA) to target your dream P 20/kg rice via formulating the “Masagana 300” rice program targeting 300 cavans/ha using hybrid varieties, someone suggested the number 299 instead; I checked, and It does look more enticing! A creative mind doesn’t simply reject a weird idea, and this is what I got ( sunsigns.org ): Angel number 299 is a sign from the angels that represents adaptability and cooperation. … a message encouraging you to be more helpful and embrace your surroundings… BBM Sir, in any case, let me introduce to you outgoing Secretary of Agriculture William Dar ; I have known him since Jan 2000 when as a writer from home (WFH) I was engaged by the India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) of which he was Director General (DG) up to Dec 2014; he is the kind of “ACE” we are looking for. BBM Sir, for your P 20/kg rice for the Filipinos, Mr Dar would have delivered! He is adaptable,

oday, Monday, 20 June 2022, I publicly announce my “Star Treatment” of the accomplishments, or lack thereof, of the complex Department of Agriculture (DA) & agencies under & attached to it (dubbed “One DA”) with the headship of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar. Yesterday, “Father’s Day,” I was thinking of Mr Dar as “Father of One DA” – so, shall we love him or leave him!? This essay is literally for star-gazing at the accomplishments of the complex of the agencies under PH DA under Mr Dar. The guide for my ratings: 1 Star – Running Along 2 Stars – Some Improvements Seen 3 Stars – Great Visibility 4 Stars – Beautiful Sights 5 Stars – Glory Be To The Father! (Images: “One DA” from da.gov.ph ; “5 Stars” from Alamy , alamy.com ; 18 numbered images from da.gov.ph , One DA’s star-way to heaven – or hell. From 1 Star to 5 Stars, how do I rate the performance of One DA in the last 35 months, from 05 August 2019, under Mr Dar? What is initially much encouraging here is that with

Today, Sunday, 19 June 2022, I greet our National Hero: “Happy Father’s Day, Jose Rizal!” I see him as the “Father of PH Agribusiness” – doing excellent farming & business in Mindanao 130 years ago. Rizal was exiled to Dapitan in July 1892 (Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org ). Rohaiza Vejano says (15 Feb 2019, “Jose Rizal As A Businessman, Prezl , prezi.com ): Rizal engaged in business. In partnership with Ramon Carreon, a Dapitan merchant, he made profitable business ventures in fishing, copra, and hemp industries. He invited his relatives to come to Mindanao, for there “is vast and ample field of business” in the island. He particularly told Saturnina that in Dapitan she could profitably engage in the textile, jewelry, and hemp business. Rizal wrote to his Austrian friend Ferdinand Blumentritt about his life in Dapitan; here is from a letter quoted by Gerardo P Sicat (23 June 2021, “Rizal’s Entrepreneurial Life As Exile In Dapitan,” PhilStar Global , philstar.com ): To… help the