Convergence Is What People Fail To See When Criticizing, What OneDA Must Carry Out To Successfully Implement The Rice Tariffication Law – Ask William Dar, Agriculture Secretary

If your mind is not systems-oriented, if you think only in parts and not in wholes, then you will look at what Secretary of Agriculture William Dar is doing – uncoordinated, like any of the Secretaries of Agriculture in the past that you did not like!

When he was appointed by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte as Secretary on 05 August 2019, Mr Dar already had published for the good of all his “New Thinking For Agriculture” (13 June 2019, Manila Times, manilatimes.net), with these 8 supporting “paradigms” - (1) Modernization, (2) Industrialization, 3) Promotion of exports, (4) Consolidation of small- and medium-sized farms (5) Infrastructure development, (6) Higher budget & investment, (7) Legislative support, and (8) Roadmap development.

If (1) you don’t do knowledge search, and (2) you think only in parts and not in wholes about PH Agriculture, you will end up and write in frustration like Marlen V Ronquillodid (Manila Times, 28 June 2020, “In A Prostrate Sector, Vileness Does Not Rest,” manilatimes.net). Mr Ronquillo did not do diligent digital research, sorry to say.

In its “History” page, the Department of Agriculture (DA) website says (undated, DA.gov.ph):

Upon his assumption to office, Dar introduced the “New Thinking for Agriculture” which is anchored on the vision: A food-secure Philippines with prosperous farmers and fisherfolk. The vision has over-arching twin goals of increasing productivity and making farmers and fishers prosperous or his term’s battlecry, “Masaganang Ani at Mataas na Kita”. [Plenteous Harvest & Bounteous Earnings – my free translation]

With The New Thinking for Agriculture, Mr Dar was already converging in his mind when he became Secretary what must be done to achieve “A food-secure Philippines with prosperous farmers and fisherfolk.”
(Converge image from amwell)

Translating a Vision into Reality is what Mr Dar has been busy doing all these years. ANN says Mr Dar has just come up with a new need for the DA: “RCEF Convergence Needed For RTL’s Success” (Author Not Named, 02 April 2022, DA.gov.ph). The Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) has components with which all DA efforts must congregate. In its meeting on 01 April 2022, Mr Dar asked the RCEF Program Steering Committee “to present and discuss the convergence map of all RCEF interventions” in those 4 components: rice mechanization, seed distribution, skills development, and credit.

In that meeting, Mr Dar said:

I really would like to see to it that the RTL is a success story, and we are doing things properly in convergence and all the components have to be reminded that we only work in integrated fashion, converging our efforts in the FCAs (farmers’ cooperatives and associations) that are now identified.

I emphasize what he said: “We are doing things properly in convergence… we only work in integrated fashion… converging our efforts in the [farmers’ groups] now identified. (Personally, I’m most interested in credit for cooperatives.)

Critics! What Mr Dar has been doing: Urging farmers to converge and motivating them with concurring assistances.@517