BBM Sir, Under Your Presidency, PH Agriculture Can Become The World’s Model – But We Have To Wake Up The Sleeping Giant Called "University Of The Philippines Los Baños"!

Above, in the middle of the image, beyond the structure going up, before Mt Makiling in the background, is the campus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, now 114 years old. In terms of agriculture, my alma mater UPLB does not deserve any red flower in homage, having been sleeping a hundred years – It has defaulted on Organic Agriculture!

I took that photo on my 70th birthday, 17 Sept 2010, with my Casio Ex-S5 camera. 2 years later, I bought my Lumix FZ100 digital camera and almost singlehandedly produced my first coffee-table book, The Filipino Farmer Is Bankable, for the Agricultural Credit Policy Council’ssilver anniversary 25 April 2012, with Jovita Corpuz as Executive Director. At that time, already I had taught myself digital writing, editing, desktop publishing. As a 1965 UPLB alumnus, BSA Ag Edu, I say, “Nobody should stop learning!” And teaching.

Sorry, but UP Los Baños has stopped learning and teaching something old, something new!

The concept leading to organic agriculture had come out in the early 1900s yet (Britannica.com). UPLB was born 1908, now a centenarian – too old to learn about a subject as old as it is?

UP Los Baños has not seen fit to encourage farming that is both farmer-smart and climate-smart – organic agriculture.

BBM Sir, let us not follow the unschooled example of UP Los Baños and instead learn and promote organic agriculture for the country in the next 6 years!

Let’s take 2 Big Lessons from Sri Lanka, which failed to become the world’s model in agriculture – that country is now in a nationwide crisis. Why because of the bad policy of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa imposing organic agriculture nationwide allat once!

What are the big lessons from Sri Lanka’s downfall?

1st Big Lesson –
Organic Agriculture is worthy of national adoption.

2nd Big Lesson –
Let us not declare Organic Agriculture to be adopted nationwide in one single day or week – we have to do it intelligently.

Why Organic Agriculture (OA) for the Philippines?

1.     OA is Productive.
When you apply organic fertilizer on the soil, your crop has all the nutrients it needs to grow and bear fruits. Organic comes from plants, and to plants it will return.

2.     OA is Healthy.
Nature designed it. Not a single part of the organic fertilizer is unhealthy to your crop and therefore your crop bears healthy fruits.

3.     OA is muchCheaper than chemical agriculture.
The plant parts that become organic fertilizer come from local sources and no part is imported – and therefore sells much cheaper.

I cannot over-recommend organic agriculture.

The use of organic fertilizers is a method of the so-called RegenerativeAgriculture. It’s called regenerativebecause it renews the fertility of the soil by man-aided natural means and does not need artificial or chemical fertilizers – no need to import those.

BBM Sir, we need to regenerate the whole Philippines from mis-development. And we need to start from A – Agriculture!@517

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How PH’s Hybrid Rice Companies Can Increase Their Sales – But Do Farmers Have To Spray All Those Pesticides!?

Image
First, let me be clear: I am in favor of hybrid rice as a good part of the solution for the Philippines to attain rice self-sufficiency – I hope this year, 2021. I have already written about it; try “How Good Are Hybrid Rices In The Philippines [1] ?” (06 January 2021, BraveNewWorld@PH ) Today, Sunday, 10 January 2021, browsing on Facebook, I notice that the hybrid rice companies in my country are not minding their own business! I mean, they are not actively assisting the farmers taking care of their plantings. I found that out when on Facebook, I scanned the page “Usapang Hybrid Rice” (Talking Hybrid Rice), “Group by Tatang Juan” (above, top image). At this Facebook page, I read the entries and noticed that the farmers’ questions, answers and comments seemed innocent – but they were not. It has something to do with this: The hybrid rice companies in the Philippines are not providing adequate advice and information to farmers. And that is not good – it may even be dangerous. Her
Read more

“Healthy Foods Come From Healthy Farms” – Frank A Hilario

Image
Food crops destroyed by floods, forests destroyed by fires – what other signs do you want from the Heavens Above? God! “Good comes from Good” says Webstaurant Store – only healthy farming can bring healthy fields and homes! (“Good Comes” image from webstaurantstore.com , “Whatever good” from brainyquote.com ) “Climate Change“ is forcing us to redefine “Primate Change“ and I, Agriculturist and writer engaged in what today I call “Communication for Village Development in the 21st Century” (CoViD21) in the last 42 years – now preach Regenerative Agriculture (RA) in the villages. Primates, only RA will save us from climate change! That is a CoViD21 action/reaction from my BSA Ag Edu, UP Los Baños, 1965 and continuing self-study with the advent of the Internet in PH in 1991. Wide thoughts come from wide reading. Here now is my considered definition: Regenerative Agriculture is any principle, process, procedure, or practice applied that repeatedly returns, revives, resuscitates, o
Read more

01, Less Is More – How PhilRice Can Reduce A Rice Farmer’s Total Expenses By 51%!

Image
This essay arose from several Facebook comments on my earlier essay “07, The More The Merrier – P 1B From DA Supportive Of 10 Bataan Model Farms Leading PH Agriculture [1] ” (21 February 2021, BrainScapes ). This is my comment in that essay that readers mainly commented on: I don’t know why, but 60-year old foreign-funded IRRI and 35-year-old PH-funded PhilRice have advocated neither high-value crops (HVCs) after rice nor fertigation, when these technologies are not that new. Joy Duldulao said: “ PhilRice advocates HVCs thru its Palayamanan and FutureRice programs.” Eufemio Rasco replied: “ PhilRice should not limit itself to advocacy. Advocacy is for those who don’t have the resources. Show by example how the challenge of scaling up can be done in its own farms! Mainstream Palayamanan!” Roberto Acosta said: “ Joy Duldulao, maybe it’s high time to change the success measurement matrix of PhilRice – from increasing rice yield to increasing rice farmers' income and better lives
Read more