Healthy Farms for Healthy Foods

History has just been written by the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) holding the first-ever “Agribusiness Pitch Challenge,” one of the competitions featured during the “1st Youth in Agriculture Summit” sponsored by the ACPC, which is under the Department of Agriculture (DA). The Summit was held 11-12 May; in the Facebook post, ANN (Author Not Named) explains the nature of the competition: (The Agribusiness Pitch Challenge aimed) to encourage the youth to engage in agriculture, fishery (or) agribusiness ventures. The initiative also (aimed) to ensure the continuous creation of investible ideas and start-up originators that will contribute to enhancing the DA’s food security objectives. The DA has been encouraging the youth to come up with fundable agribusiness projects via the “Kapital Access for Young Agripreneurs” (KAYA) program. Why the youth? Secretary of Agriculture William Dar said during the virtual launch of the Agriculture Students Association of the Philippines ...

For your mental calisthenics – Using the 2 images above, I will introduce you to 2 entirely different guides to see Agriculture in the next decades – Quantitative and Qualitative . Not obvious? That’s why I need to explain. Upper image: Shared on Facebook today, Saturday, 15 May 2021, is “5 Ways Farming Will Change In The Next 30 Years [1] ” written by Portia Stewart and which appears in the magazine Fast Company ( Agweb.com ). In sharing, Earwin   Belen says “Farming of the future is data-driven.” On 12 May, the ladies & gentlemen shown in the image discuss in a webinar the topic “Transforming The Next Era Of Agriculture Through Innovation.” Part of the Fast Company Innovation Festival, the webinar sponsor was Bayer Crop Science . They were looking at an additional world population of 2 billion people by 2050 for whom to produce food, fuel, and fiber. They are looking at numbers, not people . Unnaturally, they are talking of the necessity for growing genetically changed cr...

Here is our good friend Ramon Yedra quoting Washington SyCip on PH public education: “So the emphasis on a good public education so that the poor can use education as an equalizer, that’s essential.” From the Esquire February 2012 issue [1] , here is the more complete paragraph: My father insisted that the whole family go to public school because public schools could compete. I went to Mapa High School and Burgos Elementary School. I could compete with any La Salle or Ateneo graduate. Nowadays, you cannot. So the emphasis on a good public education so that the poor can use education as an equalizer, that’s essential. I was thinking of overhauling the whole public school system, but no, let us simplify. I went to a private institution, attending the high school department of Rizal Junior College (RJC) – which practiced liberal education, even if they did not call it that. The secret? RJC had a welcoming library full of book classics American and British, and American magazines: L...

She is the World Food Prize 2021 Winner – discoverer of the nutritional difference between “feeding” and “nourishing” people. I am sure it was a moment of brilliance, an insight: Initially pointed to by intuition, later proven by logic (research). Who is Ms Shakuntala? Written by ANN, her Biography says [1]  (Author Not Named, “2021 Thilsted,” Worldfoodprize.org ): In evaluating the nutritional composition of small native fish species in Southeast Asia, (Shakuntala Haraksingh) Thilsted was the first to establish that commonly consumed small fish were important sources of essential micronutrients and fatty acids. Small fish, big nutrition . We Asians loved fish, that was all we knew. They were relatively cheap and even easy to catch in rivers and streams. She led groundbreaking research showing that the content and bioavailability of necessary nutrients in small fish species were much higher than previously reported, and revealing that consuming fish enhanced the absorption of ...

The hellaballoo (my coinage) about pork in the Philippines especially in Metro Manila, looks like plain & simple conflict of interests – the national government versus the private sector. But No: It’s the Survival of the Fittest! In the upper image, the Department of Agriculture (DA) represented by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar (2 nd from left), and the private sector represented by Rosendo So (2 nd from right); Manila Mayor Isko Moreno happens to be in the middle of the two gentlemen, but never mind his sympathies. They are here to prove to the public that the eating of pork is safe despite the nationwide scare of many pigs actually dying because of the Asian Swine Fever (ASF) – in one report, 20K pigs were culled (killed) to prevent the spread of ASF [1] (30 September 2019, Lilybeth Ison , PNA.gov.ph , source of lechon image above). Knowing of their resistance to diseases, I now point out the forgotten alternative: raising of native pigs of the Philippines. The Phili...

In the past month of April, were we Filipinos maximizing the values of native foods by capitalizing on the mandate of Executive Order 469 signed in 2018 by President Rodrigo Duterte for celebrating Filipino Food Month (FFM) ? My answer: Neither maximizing, nor even optimizing. EO 469 is both patriotic and patronic – if I may coin a word – as at the same time it should encourage both the growing of local foods and the buying and eating of them. PH native food is good – what about the price? I have been reading April news stories and I note that not one mentioned the necessary role of restaurants, diners, fast-food joints and eateries in offering special reduced prices for their fares of Filipino dishes. Why not? This is from me, one who has a 2-year experience being a copywriter for now historical advertising genius Tony Zorilla with his prestigious Pacifica Publicity Bureau in Makati. (For Pacifica, I invented the cashphrase, “Cash Pagbukás.”) In order to “sell” the commerci...

Above, 10 May 2021, Secretary of Agriculture William Dar is saying, “We celebrate this year’s Farmers’ & Fisherfolk’s Month in one of the most challenging periods for Philippine agriculture and the country as a whole.” (Critics included.) Mr Dar made that announcement at the front of the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture (DA) in Diliman, Quezon City above the banner saying “Buwan ng Magsasaka’t Mangingisda” – literally, “Month of Farmer and Fishers” (report via Facebook post). I ask: “Why a 9-day delay officially opening the celebration?” When Mr Dar was Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India from 2000 to 2014, the ICRISAT slogan was “Science with a human face.” The delay must be part of the search for “Science with a Filipino face.” Today, I take that to be: “OneDA serving One Filipino Race.” A lovely sunset is the beginning of a bright new day. Mr Dar says, “All these are growing threats t...