Real, Jose Camacho Is New Chancellor Of UP Los Baños – Virtual, How About Chancellor Of Farmers’ Agriculture & Horticulture Knowledge Bank?

 

Today, Thursday, 24 September 2020, the UP Board of Regents, BoR, elected Jose V Camacho Jr as the new Chancellor of UP Los Baños. I was hoping to present a national program proposal for the new Chancellor to consider, somebody else, but a Chancellor is a Chancellor. The proposal I call

Farmer’s Choice
a digital knowledge base that shows
even the options users did not know existed
in terms of technologies & systems they can use.

Today, there is no such knowledge system anywhere in the world – but it has existed in my mind in the last 17 years.

It started when Director General William Dar of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, based in India, submitted to PhilRice a common knowledge project called “Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture,” OpAPA. All digital. As a PhilRice consultant at that time, I wrote up a whole book on how to implement OpAPA: The Geography Of Knowledge, all of 198 pages. Unfortunately, nobody appreciated it. Today, OpAPA as knowledge bank exists mostly in memory. (I still have a pdf copy of it; it’s yours via email: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

“Farmer’s Choice” is actually The Geography implemented in digital language. Given the pandemic and the public  & private PH restrictions extending to September 2021, I can see the timely opportunity to build that knowledge base while everybody else is worrying about everything else.

Digital is my world now. Like photography, I am self-taught in this skill. I am a graduate of BS Agriculture major in Ag Education, UP Los Baños '65. My personal joke is that I must be a good teacher because today I have no doubt that I am the world’s #1 blogger – having published in my many blogs at least 5,000 long essays on many subjects, but mostly journalism trying to sell progressive agriculture and creative thinking.

So, I understand the science of it all. I taught myself how to blog, so, in thinking about and wanting the best way for UP Los Baños to serve the Filipino people:

Considering the pandemonium,
digital is the best way to go.
Offering Farmer’s Choice.

This calls for UP Los Baños to digitize all results of its researches since it was founded in 1908 and collect them into a library. Technical Agriculture. Available to anyone, with the caveat that the language is meant for those who understand the science behind along with the jargon.

Then translate everything in that technical library into popular language that even a high school student can understand. Popular Agriculture. Available via the cellphone anywhere. Truly this will be science serving the people.

Mr Camacho cannot tell us that UP Los Baños has zero budget for such a nationwide digital project. It has been announced that past ICRISAT Director General and present PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar “commits publicly P100 Million for UPLB R&D[1]”. With Farmer’s Choice, OpAPA will become both virtual and real.

I’m thinking: Science with a cellphone face!@517

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[1]https://www.da.gov.ph/dar-commits-p100m-for-uplb-rd/?fbclid=IwAR2ZGqlUeaFyOJhXgqP7aCVWrfS9p5-dozd31izkHQFLncmcy12qvbd2t6I

High-IQ Urban Gardening – Digging Wealth Without Digging Dirt In Your Garden!

 

It’s the Science, whereby in a short while the soil in your garden literally turns from dirty to divine – very rich in foods for flowers, fruit trees, ornamentals, or vegetables. (Grow Rich image[1] from amazon.com)

Without digging, yes!

Cheryl Magyar gives you “6 Reasons To Stop Digging Your Garden + How To Get Started[2]” (01 July 2019, Rural Sprout). She says:

Now is the season to stop treating your backyard garden as a mini-farm and end the backbreaking work of digging once and for all.

Not only will your gardening “work” be more fun, you’ll end up working less hard too – which can only be a good thing.

Instead of digging up your garden, mulch it!

I have a direct experience in mulching our ricefield of 1 ha in our town of Asingan, Pangasinan, Philippines in the 1960s. I got the idea from American Edward H Faulkner: minimum tillage. I told the giant Howard rotavator tractor operator not to set the rotating blades to any depth but to simply pass the big, hulky thing over the field. My brother-in-law Inso said later he saw the operator smiling on the side. Why because he knew that would hardly use up any diesel fuel. But I also knew that the counter-pointed rotating blades will cut finely the weeds & soil in the same motion & mix them well on the upper surface of the soil, spread across the field as it went. My mulch!

Many years later, Inso told me he had continued that kind of mulching with his hand tractor and the results are as amazing – greater harvests. His neighbor farmers told him they had been imitating everything they saw him doing, but their yields were still much lower. He never told them about the mulching.

If you dig your garden, you are destroying the soil structure. Miss Cheryl says:

Fluffing the soil, then recompacting it, either by tractor or feet, destroys the intricate soil structure. It also prevents air and water penetration to the roots of the plants. Water is essential to the life of the plant; don’t cut off the supply, rather increase it by building the soil over time.

If your garden is covered green, meaning you don’t dig it, Miss Cheryl says, “The lack of bare soil prevents… seeds of annuals from germinating.” No weeds!

When you stop digging, over time your garden becomes more fertile. This will also encourage the multiplication of earthworms, which help aerate the soil, not to mention contribute their waste as soil wealth.

With your surface mulch, you will not have to water your crop every day, if at all.

And yes, you will experience higher yields in your Do-Not-Disturb Vegetable Garden as you add compost and organic matter to it.

There is another benefit if you do not disturb your garden. Miss Cheryl says:

Where you leave the soil unturned, beneficial organisms can thrive in their natural undisturbed environment. This allows for a balance between prey and predator species.

This is Gardening Without Pests!@517

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[1]https://www.amazon.com/Think-and-Grow-Rich-Legacy-audiobook/dp/B07D8LKF22

[2]https://www.ruralsprout.com/no-dig-garden/?fbclid=IwAR1ps6INVg0-7HD2ReQ8zO94JD79mE8WasBbbPmpAtqW5Fdx5oDqSFsgOD8

“PH Export Bananas Being Attacked By Coronavirus!”

In case you didn’t know (I didn’t): “Banana is one of the Philippines’ major export fruit crops, producing more than 2 million metric tons (MT) every 3 months (19 June 2019[1],” Press Reader). That major.

Above, read my scary title again – might as well be physically true as sounded by local banana exporters 3 months ago and in the words of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar: “We’re losing our market share to other countries.” He is referring to Cavendish banana being exported by other countries. That is according to the report of Madelaine B Miraflor (22 September 2020, “DA Worries PH Losing Export Market Share In Bananas[2],” Manila Bulletin). Miss Madeleine says it is something Mr Dar is “starting to seriously worry about.” Mr Dar says (Mr Dar’s image[3] from Manila Bulletin):

The Philippines is losing in the (banana) export war. What happened? ¶ “If left unchecked, this will substantially reduce the Philippines’ exports, disrupt trade in the international markets, and cause suffering on (our) banana growers, farmers, workers and their families, which may lead to social unrest.

Mr Dar’s Big Worry derives from the statement of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association, PBGEA President Victor S Mercado Jr that he made 3 months ago about a likely loss of demand (banana box image above[4] from Avante Agri-Products):

There is a risk China, the current biggest export market for Philippine’s Cavendish banana, may prefer to source its supply of the yellow fruit from Vietnam and Cambodia in the next months because these countries have fewer COVID-19 cases.

Covid-19 is not the Philippines’ fault, but it’s there bothering all countries.

From another angle, Miss Madeleine says:

(PBGEA Chair Alberto Bacani) thinks the country’s banana output will likewise decline this year due to loss in hectarage in banana plantation, thanks to the Panama disease, as well as stiff market competition overseas.

There are now 2 major diseases that our banana growers have to worry about: transmission of the human Covid-19 virus through the transactions, as well as transmission of fungal wilt (Panama disease).

Big problem requires bold moves.

So, Mr Dar has:

Assigned P100 million to rehabilitate Panama-disease affected Cavendish plantations in Mindanao, both big and small growers; and, in so doing:

Challenged the PBGEA to match that P100 million for the conduct of a sustainable research and development (R&D) program to control the disease and rehabilitate affected areas.

The R&D program will produce by tissue culture plantlets of the Panama disease-resistant banana varieties to be distributed to farmers to rehabilitate their farms.

Additionally, outside the Cavendish farms, for other farmers in other places, Mr Dar says the DA will implement a nationwide development program for the cooking banana or saba, of the Cardaba variety. The fund of P120 million will cover 10 provinces: Apayao, Cagayan, Oriental Mindoro and Quezon in Luzon; Samar and Leyte in the Visayas; and Agusan Del Norte, Davao Del Sur, Lanao Del Norte and North Cotabato in Mindanao.

Under Mr Dar, the DA has got all the banana bases covered!@517

 

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[1]https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/tempo-9gc1/20190619/281921659568298
[2]https://mb.com.ph/2020/09/22/da-worries-ph-losing-export-market-share-in-bananas/?
bclid=IwAR3MHIGQkkexEvbVHgWU3GAIezYttcXA9TWDMW7_qAljajRoq24OBLhgxTk
[3]https://mb.com.ph/2020/09/22/da-worries-ph-losing-export-market-share-in-bananas/
[4]https://www.avanteagri.com/products-packaging/

Milking The Coconut Industry In The Philippines

More than 5 years ago, in February of 2015, former UP System President Emil Q Javier came up with a position paper published by the National Academy of Science and Technology titled “Modernization Of The Coconut Industry” (NAST Bull 8, 5 pages in pdf). In Bull 8, Mr Javier showed that we had scarcely milked the coconut dry of its numerous food, medicine and other benefits. (coco fruits image[1] from The Kahimyang Project, glasses of milk[2] from Stanpac)

Here comes the news from the Department of Agriculture, DA, under Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, “DA Moves To Integrate Coconut, Dairy Farming[3]” (Louise Maureen Simeon, 20 September 2020, PhilStar Global). The Memorandum of Agreement, MoA, has been signed for the Coconut-Carabao Development Project, CCDP. The CCDP is primarily aimed to raise the income of coco farmers to desirable levels. It is a 2-year project covering 17 sites nationwide.

The CCDP is a collaboration of the Philippine Carabao Center, PCC, and the Philippine Coconut Authority, PCA, both agencies under the DA. The CCDP will be working with local government units, LGUs, municipal and/or provincial, “for the provision of technical support services, monitoring, and allotment of space for marketing facilities.”

So, the coconut fields will be giving out another form of commercial liquid: carabao’s milk. As a consumer myself, that is a much welcome news. In my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, we have had a herd of Indian buffalos being raised by a cooperative for their milk – and I can assure you that the milk is delicious!

 “The milk produced out of the CCDP is seen to contribute to the supply of milk required… for the national feeding program for undernourished Filipino children.”

According to Mr Javier, there are about 3 million farmers primarily engaged in coconut “cultivation” – which in reality is mostly watching over the area where the coconut trees are growing. He says the Philippines is “the world’s largest coconut producer and coconut oil exporter.”

Mr Javier asks:

We are the global leader in coconut production. How do we keep that dominant position and at the same time generate greater value out of that comparative advantage? In other words, how do we modernize the Philippine coconut industry to make it more productive, globally competitive but environmentally sustainable and equitable, particularly to the small farmers who can be and are often short-changed in the rush toward agriculture modernization?

Since we have giant headaches with coconut farming and farmers, why not switch to oil palm and rubber instead?

Mr Javier says:

(1)   Coconut is typhoon-resilient and salt-tolerant. The tree can be uprooted and/or broken only by extremely strong winds.

(2)   Coconut has a diversity of uses that oil palm and rubber cannot match.

(3)   With sunlight filtering among the trees, we can intercrop with both annuals and perennials, thus creating more employment, more food – and more cash for the coco farmers.

More crops, more produce, more income. Yes Sir, our coco farmers have for too long remained poor!

Milk out of those tall trees? That would be using our coconuts!@517

 

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[1]https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/2451/today-in-philippine-history-june-30-1973-philippine-coconut-authority-was-established-by-virtue-of-pd-no-232
[2]https://www.stanpacnet.com/glass-packaging-benefits/
[3]https://www.philstar.com/business/2020/09/20/2043667/da-moves-integrate-coconut-dairy-farming

Wake Up! Aggie Journalists & Play Active Roles Towards More Farmers’ Success

A1, an OFW, takes up farming, cultivates 50 ha and makes P1,500,000 (US$30,000) every 6 months out of garlic and onions. Story comes out.

A2, also an OFW, cultivates 1 ha of rice and makes only P10,000 each cropping season. No story.

A3, a farmer, converts his 7-ha crop farm into a tourism farm and now is earning P1 million a year! Story.

A4, an agriculturist, quits his job at a government office, converts his 5-ha farm into a tourism farm and is earning P120,000 a year. Compare with A3. No story.

A5 is raising improved native chickens (dominant CZ) in La Union and is now earning half a million every 6 months. Story.

A6, long-time farmer, is raising native chickens and barely earning enough for his family. His wife sells fish in the public market. No story.

A7 planted the Longping hybrid rice in 10 hectares and made P500,000 in 1 growing season. Story.

A8 planted Longping hybrid rice in 1 ha and made only P15,000 in 1 growing season. No story.

A9 is growing cacao seedlings in his 1 ha agroforest farm and making P1 million a year from sales. Story.

A10 is growing cacao in his 2 ha agroforest farm and making only P100,000 a year from sales. No story.

A11 is growing sweet sorghum in 2 ha and making P500,000 from the wine he makes. Story.

A12 is growing sweet sorghum in 2 ha and making only P100,000 from the wine he makes. No story.

A13 is growing all the pinakbetvegetables and is making P1 million a year. The vegetables include bitter gourd, eggplant, okra, chili, drumstick tree, and winged beans. He sells to A15. Story.

A14 is growing all the pinakbetvegetables and is making only P150,000 a year. No story.

A15 is running a restaurant in town exclusively offering the authentic Ilocano pinakbet, and is making half a million pesos every 4 months. The Filipinos – and foreigners – love vegetables cooked just right. Story.

A16 is running a restaurant offering exclusively pinakbet and is making only P50,000 every 5 months. No story.

A17 bought a bus and now is earning P500,000/year from that vehicle. He is planning to buy another one. Story.

A18 bought a bus and now is earning P150,000/year from that vehicle. No story.

A19 has an orchard of mangoes that yields him P750,000 every harvest season. He does not do the harvesting himself – the buyer along with his boys does it. Story.

A20 has an orchard of mangoes that yields him only P50,000 every harvest season. No story.

Different farmers, similar costs – dissimilar results in returns. There are millions more farmers failing to rise from poverty, so they are the ones that our journalists should be writing about! (millionaire image[1] from SlidePlayer; w/health image from Shutterstock.com[2])

Unhappily, PH journalists actively neither supports the leadership of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar nor farmer groups in their efforts for individual members to succeed. Else, we can have more millionaire farmers than they can write about!@517

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[1]https://slideplayer.com/slide/13708016/
[2]https://www.shutterstock.com/search/wealth

“I Have A New Dream, I Have A New Goal” – PH Agriculture & The Communication Of Science

 

Today, Saturday, 19 September 2020, on Facebook Father Corapi Catholic Channel shares, and I love the quote:

You are never too old
to set another goal.
Or to dream a new dream.
CS Lewis

Sharer of wisdom, Catholic. Source Protestant. I am Catholic. We Catholics don’t have a monopoly of wisdom!

Actually, less than 2 months ago, on 07 August 2020, I created this new blog of mine where you are reading this – Brave New World PH – with a logo of a girl walking surrounded by a bright future. I did borrow that BNW image from comicbook TV[1]). What stronger image for bravery than a girl? For the brave new Philippines.

Because, yes, if I do not dedicate the rest of my life to my country, it’s still mine but what good is my digital knowhow then? Talent shared is talent multiplied.

In agriculture in the Philippines, with the continuing lockdown up to 12 September 2021, there is very little or no freedom at all for government agencies, scientists & extensionists, as well as private companies & their field technicians, to interact with farmers. On top of that, there is very little or no stored farming knowledge that anyone can tap anytime to guide one’s actions – well, this has been a lack in the hundred years plus since the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, was founded in March 1908.

And, granting knowledge: If memory is to be relied on, whose memory should it be? Science must be recorded, accessible to all, not simply in someone’s memory.

On 28 August 1963, black civil rights leader Martin Luther King led the March on Washington and delivered the “I Have A Dream“ speech (that became) widely considered the greatest of the 20th century, noted for its power and resonance[2]” (Britannica). It was a “a call for equality and freedom.”

Believe it or not, that is exactly how I look at the situation of PH Agriculture right now: A call for equality in the access to knowledge and thereby power; it is also a call for freedom in movements to cultivate the soils of the Philippines for the prosperity of all in the villages.

My Strategy: Equality of access to complete sets of knowledge, ultimately by cellphone.

Lack of access to complete sets of science and practices are actually the primary reason why PH Agriculture is not competitive with that of any of the ASEAN countries. For instance, how do you explain the fact that Vietnamese and Filipino farmers are using the same technology sets in growing rice and yet the Vietnamese spend less and the Filipinos spend more per kilo of grains produced? The Vietnamese farmers must know more than the Filipino!

My Dream: Sustainable farming by all!

All farming must lead to sustainability – employing methods & materials that are feasible, economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially acceptable. The gross domestic prosperity must not only increase but must be inclusive, shared by all.@517

 

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[1]https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/brave-new-world-tv-show-spoilers-review-peacock/

[2]https://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Have-A-Dream

PH, Even Beyond The Du30 Terrestrial Lockdown To Sept 2021, UP Los Baños Needs Intellectual Release From The Silence Of Science!

Du30’s coronavirus lockdown extends to 12 Sept 2021, but no presidential decree should quarantine our thinking such as on science applied to agriculture, on knowledge applied to farming – and on a national university reaching out to the people to help them think on problems and act out solutions.

The University of the Philippines Los Baños is crucial here and, since as an alumnus I know that UPLB has inadvertently locked down itself into the Silence of Science, as a modern knowledge warrior I dare my alma mater to wake up from its science slumber and serve the people with eyes wide open and mind alert!

In the above image, I’m saying if you are the UPLB Chancellor, you need instant multi-institutional perspectives that you can create only in a digital universe.

UPLB needs a digital Chancellor now!

I, Frank A Hilario, as:
Editor In Chief of several science publications in the last 45 years;
a self-taught digital Editor in the last 25 years;
a self-directed unstoppable blogger publishing thousands upon thousands of essays for PH Agriculture in the last 13 years;
I have not observed any official involvement of my alma mater in the matter of reviving Philippine Agriculture before or during the lockdown;
I believe the times call for digital wisdom and I know this candidate UPLB Chancellor has been immersed in the digital world of education, pioneering e-learning in the Philippines:

Considering all that, I fully believe that among the 3 candidates,

Patrick Alain T Azanza deserves to be the next Chancellor of my alma mater UP Los Baños!
(above image, superimposed)

Meanwhile, all of UP Los Baños is in its Rip Van Winkle digital slumber, despite the founding of the Institute of Computer Science that started offering a BS Computer Science degree in 1983, the first of its kind in the country[1].

Today, the first is last!

Sadly, UP Los Baños never went beyond offering BS Computer Science into digitalizing knowledge in agriculture and related fields in both languages: technical (for professionals), and popular (for farmers). I can give 2 reasons for UPLB’s failure:

(1)   UPLB’s incomplete appreciation of the digital universe – otherwise, the aggie professionals and field technicians out there would have been served with unending knowledge.

(2)   UPLB’s incomplete empathy with the farmers – otherwise, the University would have joined the government agencies behind the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture, OpAPA, as digital servant for everyone involved in farming.

Submitted via PhilRice, OpAPA was the brainchild of the then-Director General of ICRISAT, based in India, now Secretary of Agriculture William Dar. On how to implement OpAPA intellectually, I wrote out my proposal into a digital book, The Geography Of Knowledge, 198 pages, dated 28 December 2003 – unfortunately, nothing came out of it. They went on their OpAPA way, and now OpAPA is dead.

If Mr Azanza becomes UPLB Chancellor, I will show it to him. Then it will be an excellent opportunity to explore the geography of knowledge for agriculture!@517

 

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[1]http://ics.uplb.edu.ph/degree/bscs