PhilRice, Don’t Just “Be RiCEPONSIBLE” – You Have To “Be RiCESEARCHABLE” And Find Out More To Solve The Poverty Of Your Methods So That You Will Solve The Poverty Of Your Farmers!

“Be RiCEPONSIBLE” is a good slogan as far as I am concerned, being an agriculturist and educationist (UPLB, BSA major in Ag Edu, 1965). The ABKD campaign (top image) centers on rice sufficiency, consumer health & rice security – to mix adlai, corn and banana etc with rice; to eat brown rice; to not waste rice; and to buy only Philippine rice.

(Top image “November is” from twitter.com)

ANN says, “National Rice Awareness Month Kick-Off (November 3, 2022)” (Author Not Named, 04 Nov 2022, DA, da.gov.ph). The ABKD individual images say:

Adlay, mais, saba atbp ay ihalo sa kanin.
Brown rice ay kainin.
Kanin ay huwag sayangin.
Dapat bigas ng Pilipinas ang bilhin.

My translation:

Adlai, corn, banana etc, to mix with rice.
Brown rice to eat.
Eat and not waste.
Should buy Philippine rice.

ANN says:

Pursuant to Presidential Proclamation No 524 Series of 2004, the National Rice Awareness Month is observed every November to raise public awareness on rice, combat malnutrition and poverty, and attain rice self-sufficiency.

Naturally, PhilRice, which is under the Department of Agriculture (DA), leads in the celebration of “National Rice Awareness Month.” The ABKD campaign (above) covers avoiding waste while eating rice, mixing rice with other foods for health – and hopefully attaining sufficiency in supply.

Note: There is zero report on farmer poverty. Why because it’s still there. We are zero in solving farmer poverty.

PhilRice, wake up! You have nothing to lose but your hardheaded insistence on high yields of rice and nothing else!

If you have ignored it until now, let me shout Robert Rodale’s “Regenerative Agriculture,” that which I am dramatizing now by calling it “Climate Change Agriculture.”

To exaggerate: If you subsidize for all rice farmers all their fertilizer needs and make it all organic, you will solve farmer poverty within 365 days!

Not the least, with rice all-organic, you are going to help solve Climate Change by eliminating greenhouse gases (GHGs) from ricefields.

I will now revise your slogan to this:

“Be RiCESEARCHABLE.”

If you assume that intelligent attitude that many things about rice are still researchable, you will begin to appreciate what I have been blogging about at least since 15 years ago, when I was beginning my 8-year stint as writer-from-home (WFH) for ICRISAT under Director General William Dar who inspired the ICRISAT slogan, “Science with a human face.”

PhilRice, if your science does not have a farmer face, your science is selfish and only good for scientists! Go PhilRice and “Be RiCESEARCHABLE”!

DA – Ladies & gentlemen of Philippine rice, go search and discover more! Such as if you teach farmers to use organic fertilizers in applying the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) as their farming technique, yields will increase and at the same time incomes will increase so many times. Not the very least, you will help resolve Climate Change. SRI is Science with a human face!

PhilRice: Go and completely “Be RiCEPONSIBLE”!@517