Knorr Of Big Business Unilever Thinks Big Business Regenerative Agriculture – My Tiny Country PH Also Should!

“Knorr’s plan for 50 regenerative agriculture projects is predicted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water use by an estimated 30% while improving biodiversity, soil health and livelihoods.”

That is regenerative agriculture (RA) news by Julian Cirineo (05 Nov 2021, “Unilever Wants To Rethink How Farms Work To Secure Food And Resources For The Future,” Rappler, rappler.com). Note: 50 (not 5 only) RA projects to improve greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and water use by 30% – plus improving biodiversity, soil health and livelihoods.

Note the last 7 words in the above paragraph.

How can RA improve biodiversity? RA requires that the farmer practices multiculture (a few or many crops grown at the same time in the same place), where monoculture (such as rice-only or corn-only) is the practice – the biodiversity improves crop health because of the ensuing balance of nature, such as some organisms feed on other organisms that would otherwise become pests or cause diseases. RA is your natural pest & disease control agent!

How does RA improve soil health? Immediately upon application of organic fertilizer, the nutrients from the rotting matter transfer to the soil, enriching it.

And how does RA improve livelihoods? Compared to the total cost of chemical agriculture (CA), the cost of farming with RA is much lesser, resulting in much higher farmer income.

This alumnus of UP Los Baños says “biodiversity” is a foreign word to millions of Filipino farmers and the vast majority of agriculturists! Pity.

More Knorr details are given by FoodDrinkEurope (17 Feb 2022, “Unilever: Knorr’s Regenerative Agriculture Projects To Reduce Food’s Climate Impact,” FoodDrinkEurope, fooddrinkeurope.eu):

Unilever’s largest food brand – Knorr announced the launch of 50 new projects (around half of them in Europe) in regenerative agriculture in the next five years focusing on key ingredients (vegetables, grains, spices, herbs), to reduce Knorr’s carbon footprint.

Now, Unilever has learned what we Filipinos have yet to learn: Our crops contribute much to our “carbon footprint.” A carbon footprint, says The Nature Conservancy, is “the total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) that are generated by our actions” (nature.org).

Philippine “modern” agriculture practices are actually as old as 114 years starting with the founding of the UP College of Agriculture (now UP Los Baños, my alma mater) on 05 March 1908: monoculture, persistent flooding of rice, transplanting over-mature seedlings, too many seedlings in haphazard transplanting – what else is old?!

The lower image above shows the many-sided effects of climate change on land used for agriculture, among them “reduced yields” and “increased irrigation.” Instead of persisting on chemical agriculture (CA) as farming groups and individuals do in the Philippines, Knorr is being intelligent about agriculture. Why not us Filipinos?!
(“Climate Change” image from ScienceDirect, sciencedirect.com)

Unfortunately, not even the century-old primary agricultural university in the Philippines, which is UP Los Baños, is teaching how we can change our farming to save our planet – and ourselves! I do not understand why someone in UPLB is not paying attention to climate change & farming systems?!@517

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