Cow’s Milk Vs Coco Milk. Getting A Positive Business Tip From A Negative Perspective

 

A reminder: How easy it is to produce coco milk! (image[1] from Ela Vegan)

Today, Saturday, 05 December 2020, I am surprised by my fellow Filipino Eufemio Rasco’s Facebook post and the comments that follow:

Why is coconut milk more expensive than cow’s milk? Is it more nutritious?

Eufemio Rasco: Economists will find this difficult to explain. It defies law of supply and demand.

Sherwin Rasco: Hmmm…Eka mas maiksi ang shelf life ng cocomilk. (Shelf life of coco milk is shorter.)

Donna Lampano: Uhmm.. Maybe because of its health benefits. Kasi nga naman (You have to consider), “Health is Wealth” kaya ayan (now then), it costs more…

Chito Reynoso: Brod Prof. Dong (Rasco), I believe it’s mainly economics specifically supply. World milk production vs coco milk production is a virtual Goliath and David scenario. Est milk prod annual is 900 M liters dominated by India, China, US, NZ and some Euro countries, while coco milk, mainly used for Asian cuisine, is only in the 100K liter mark. Like in Canada, in the recent perhaps 2 years, I know farmers had to literally dump milk in order to decrease supply because the prices were so low.

Now, my comments.

No, there is no defying of the Law of Supply & Demand – it is easy to explain that the cow’s milk producers, the dairymen, defy logic by overproducing and oversupplying the market. It does not matter whether the shelf life of coco milk is shorter – if the public want it, they will snap the supply.

Yes, it may be the health benefits. Yes, “Health is Wealth” – at this time of the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, health is #1 concern. “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food” – Hippocrates, founder of Western medicine.

And about cow’s milk producers dumping their milk when there is an over-supply – there is almost always an over-supply, so I’m surprised about the stubbornness of cow’s milk producers – the people, not the cows!

Mr Rasco, who started this one, does not tell us his source of his news, but it really does not matter. Or rather, I thank him for it, for it gives me an idea for a subject matter in PH extension in agriculture:

Farmers should be producing more and more coco milk than ever – Especially that it is more expensive than cow’s milk!

That will go along fine with growing cacao as intercrop in coconut farms. (See my essay, 04 December 2020, “Already, Quezon Is The Chocolate Capital Of Luzon – But Quezonians Still Have To Use Their Coconuts![2]” Brave New World PH). Consider also that, according to Chito Reynoso, cow’s milk production is a Goliath (900 M liters annually) compared to coco milk production, a David (100 K liters only). So, there is over-production of cow’s milk and under-production of coco milk: To do good business, you know what to do.

So I’m hoping the Department of Agriculture under Secretary of Agriculture William Dar will soon assist coco farmers as much as they deserve!@517

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[1]https://elavegan.com/homemade-coconut-milk-recipe/

[2]https://bravenewworldph.blogspot.com/2020/12/already-quezon-is-chocolate-capital-of.html

Where In The World Is The Los Baños Science Community?

"Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?” was a world-wide hit game show that lasted from 1991 to 1995 for a total of 5 seasons and 295 episodes[1] (Wikipedia). “The show was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey that indicated Americans had alarmingly little knowledge of geography, with one in four being unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.”

Today, Saturday, 05 December 2020, I ask the question, “Where in the world is the Los Baños Science Community?” My question is different in that I am asking for a place in the geography of knowledge, for essentially a community of people engaged in science for development via agriculture; after all, it is the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, UPCA (now UP Los Baños) that gave birth to that science on 08 March 1908, thanks to American scientists. (Yes, I am pro-American.)

My question is:

Why has the Los Baños Science Community not been contributing to the survival, revival and triumph of PH Agriculture especially during these lockdown pandemic times?

I’m speaking as an alumnus, UP '65, and as a creative writer for the advancement of “inclusive national development” via agriculture – inclusive of the rise from poverty of the poor, starting with the farmers.

That’s why today I’m looking for the Los Baños Science Community – where is it? I’m talking not simply of UP Los Baños and the other entities that celebrated the virtual 12^th SyenSaya” 2-4 December 2020 – syensaya, a good coinage from sciencia, science.
(SyenSaya[2] image from Facebook page of Los Baños Science Community Foundation Inc)

Carol Yorobe, Undersecretary of S&T Services of the Department of Science & Technology, noted in 2016 that the Los Baños Science Community was now composed of 22 members, including IRRI[3] (Paula Blanca Ferrer, IRRI.org). Easy to say, hard to count!

The units I know are 9: (1) UP Los Baños itself, (2) Ecosystem Research & Development Bureau; (3) Forest Products Research & Development Institute; (4) Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic & Natural Resources Research & Development; (5) National Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology; (6) National Crops Protection Center; (7) UP Open University, (8) IRRI and (9) PhilRice Los Baños.

According to its Facebook page, the Los Baños Science Community, LBSC, was formed in 1984 by President Ferdinand Marcos via Presidential Executive Order 784. The LBSC was registered as a foundation in 2001. The “LBSCFI hopes to transform Los Baños into a model community using science-based technologies[4].”

At most, the vision is for the Los Baños Science Community to become a model community. What about the communities around it – and in other parts of the Philippines?

The Los Baños Science Community has no plans to transform farm communities all over the country using science-based technologies?! With the 12^thSyensaya, the Los Baños Science Community has become virtual, online. On fire? No.

As far as technically assisting in the inclusive national development of PH Agriculture, where in the world is the Los Baños Science Community?!@517

 

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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_Is_Carmen_Sandiego%3F_(game_show)

[2]https://www.facebook.com/lbscfi/photos/a.366509663473984/2464549123670017

[3]http://news.irri.org/2016/07/the-los-banos-science-community.html

[4]https://www.facebook.com/lbscfi/about/

Already, Quezon Is The Chocolate Capital Of Luzon – But Quezonians Still Have To Use Their Coconuts!

“Quezon Province Seen As Emerging Cacao Hub In Luzon[1]” says the news release from the Department of Agriculture (DA.gov.ph). If you look at the image above, you will notice that a large number of people were present when Secretary of Agriculture William Dar spoke to the Quezonians led by Helen Tan, 4^th District Representative of Quezon Province, accompanied by DA Region 4A Director Arnel De Mesa.

Currently, cacao growing is being encouraged in 9 towns of Quezon: Atimonan, Calauag, Guinayangan, Gumaca, Lopez, Perez, Plaridel, Quezon and Tagkawayan. Appropriately, on 30 November 2020, Mr Dar led the inauguration of a chocolate production facility in Gumaca worth P1.5 million granted by the DA to the Four K Kakao Farm.

The same occasion saw the launching of a range of “Tangerine” chocolate products, and the distribution by the DA of cash and food subsidy to marginal farmers and fishers – double aids for families to help meet needs to surmount the ravages on homes and farms by typhoons in past months.

“Tangerine” is dark chocolate made by cacao farmers and members of the Kakao Integrated Development for Livelihood and Transformation, inspired  by Miss Helen, the “Chocolate Queen of Luzon.”

According to the DA, Mr Dar “lauded the skills, diligence and resilience of cacao farmers who are behind the success of the “Tangerine” brand, saying:

Binabati ko kayo mga nagtatanim ng kakaw sa pagkakaroon n’yo ng sariling brand ng tsokolate na maituturing na isa sa mga bunga ng inyong pagsusumikap na mapaunlad ang industriya ng kakaw.

(I congratulate you cacao planters for having your own brand of chocolate that may be seen as the fruit of your labors in advancing the cacao industry.)

Patuloy kayong magsumikap at ‘wag mawalan ng pag-asa dahil ang pagkakaroon ng pag-asa ay makakatulong upang umahon ang sektor ng agrikultura at ang bansa; magsilbi nawa kayong mga haligi sa pag-unlad ng bansa.

(Keep on striving and do not lose hope, because it is with hope that you will help level up agriculture and the country. I hope you will serve as lampposts for the country to move forward.)

As for me, a crusader for multicropping, I particularly note the DA news source saying:

(Mr Dar) advised the farmers to intercrop cacao under coconut, as well as Cardaba or saba and livestock, like cattle and goats, to earn more income and add value to their enterprise. “We must endeavor to make farming a profitable venture,” he said. “Farmers should be open to and adopt innovative ideas and technologies. This is our vision – to modernize and industrialize Philippine agriculture.”

More crops, more livestock. I have noted in years of reading and hundreds of days of Facebook browsing, that PH cacao farmers do not practice agroforestry, or do not plant their cacao along with trees that bear fruit as well as serve as nurse trees to the cacao seedlings. They do not value intercropping.

Agroforestry is multiple cropping – multiple sources of income.
The cacao farmers have to learn to use their coconuts too!@517

 

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[1]https://www.da.gov.ph/quezon-province-seen-as-emerging-cacao-hub-in-luzon/?fbclid=IwAR2VGTGthHEsi0ogJV4SHMOIjmcbU3UBnXYVbhh4VO_XAqHtqdp83HskFBo

“They Grow Old When They Stop Falling In Love” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Me, I Have Many Loves!

 I am now 80, but I will not grow old because I keep falling in love! The difference between Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Frank A Hilario is that he loved himself too much – and I have gotten over that! Today, I keep falling in love with humanity.

I fell in love with writing for myself when I was senior high at the sleepy town of Asingan, Pangasinan in 1957. I won for my Tagalog essay against a bonafide Tagalog – despite Ilocano-ak, I’m Ilocano!

I fell in love with writing for my country when I was college sophomore at the University of the Philippines’ College of Agriculture in 1960. As a writer of the student paper Aggie Green & Gold, I wrote against the coming of the US Peace Corps Volunteers in the Philippines. Yes, I did.

I fell in love with writing about the good, the bad and the ugly when I started as an information writer at Forest Research Institute on 16 April 1975. Forestry, Agroforestry.

And on 18 March 1967, I fell in love with lovewhen I got married to Amparo Reynoso Hilario and fell in love again with the Roman Catholic Church on 1 January 1991 during a Marriage Encounter seminar in Tagaytay City under the sponsorship of Bukás Loób sa Díyos, San Pablo District Community.

Every single day I fall in love with something or other – and so via a Facebook Private Message, on 21 November 2020:I fell in love with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his “Farewell Letter,” where he says among other things, that if he did not have cancer:

I would give merit to things not for what they are worth, but for what they mean to express.

I would sleep little, I would dream more, because I know that for every minute that we close our eyes, we waste 60 seconds of light.

I would walk while others stop; I would awake while others sleep.

To all men, I would say how mistaken they are when they think that they stop falling in love when they grow old, without knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love.

And so today I say, “I love you” to whoever you are!

I have been earnestly blogging since 2007. Blogging to share what I think is the good and differentiating it from the not-so-good science in Agriculture. I suggest things people can do; they choose. “I would give wings to children, but I would leave it to them to learn how to fly by themselves.”

But unlike Gabriel Garcia Marquez , I keep discovering things for what they are worth – and what they are meant to express. I love the world.

Many farmers are hard-headed workers, and that’s a match: I am a hard-headed worker myself!

“To old people I would say that death doesn’t arrive when they grow old, but with forgetfulness.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I would forget myself but not others!@517

Generating Wealth From Rice – But Palayamanan Stops At Rich!

If I remember right, I first encountered the demo farm Palayamanan at the headquarters of PhilRice 17 years ago, in 2003 when I was invited by PhilRice Executive Director Leo Sebastian as a consultant. I was then Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science, PJCS, the technical journal of the Crop Science Society of the Philippines based in Laguna. As the image above shows, the farm had rice plus farm animals. Palayamanan is a word coined from palay, rice, and yaman, wealth; combined into 1 word, it acquires a different meaning – source of wealth.
(Palayamanan image[1] from Palayamanan Farmers Coop)

As Editor In Chief of PJCS, I accepted and the paper was published, “Palayamanan: A Rice-Based Farming Systems Model  For Small-Scale Farmers” authored by RG Corales, LM Juliano, AOV Capistrano, HS Tobias, NV Dasalla, SD Cañete,  MC Casimero & LS Sebastian (PJCS 29, 2005).. Now, let me point out that even if the name of the journal seemed limiting papers published to crops, the Palayamanan paper was animal science and crop science enriching each other.

The abstract of the technical paper says:

The Palayamanan model of diversified integrated rice-based farming system developed and established by the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is composed of synergistically compatible farming ventures such as rice, onion, poultry, livestock, and aquaculture. The model farm has been established in six state colleges and universities and a research center in the country. The system employs practical, cost-saving and yield-enhancing management practices. The system includes microbial technology as an added dimension of the management practices to facilitate farm operations, improve the resource base and reduce overall operational costs.  A one-hectare diversified farm can sustain most of the daily food requirements, incidental expenses from fast-growing crops, and provide considerable income from animals, fish, and seasonal field crops.

As conceived, Palayamanan is a model mix of crop & livestock raising systems: rice, onion, poultry, livestock, and aquaculture. This is in a 1-hectare farm. This has been set up in 6 state colleges and universities and a research center in the Philippines. It is cost-saving because the would-be waste in one system becomes an input in another, such as poultry waste used as fertilizer and crop refuse as animal feed. Palayamanan reduces farming risk by being composed of several systems – if one system fails, the other systems can at least sustain the farming family as to food, incidental expenses, and “provide considerable income from animals, fish, and seasonal field crops.” Three members of a family of six can operate the whole farm.

My concern lies in communication for development, ComDev, in the field of Agriculture –Palayamanan has not proliferated in the Philippines. I believe it is not the art & science of it; rather, it is the lack of avid ComDev journalists who have been enthusiastically endorsing it, which explains the lack of success stories.

Yes, I daresay Palayamanan is a treasure trove that remains to be discovered and/or re-discovered by the Department of Agriculture, DA, under the leadership of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar.@517

 

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[1]https://www.facebook.com/PalayamananBalayangPalacpalac/

How To Teach_Learn Anything Technical In Agriculture

You are looking at a rotavator, which I am sure you are not familiar with. Precisely!

Question: As an innocent farmer, or even as an Agriculturist, do you need a technician to learn about a machine such as the above, a rotavator? (CY80[1], Ching Yee Manufacturing, Taiwan). It’s a cultivator with blades that rotate, hence the coined name “rotavator.” The whole thing is dragged, not pushed.

Answer: My answers: Yes – and No. As a teacher in agriculture (graduate of UP Los Baños with a BSA major in Ag Education, 1965; with a Civil Service eligibility at the Professional Level, with high school and college teaching experiences). But as good teachers, we have to learn on our own first before we teach!

Even now, look at those blades. There are 5 pairs of blades. They cut against each other, don’t they? And since the whole thing rotates as those L-shaped and J-shaped blades cut – look at the middle of the contraption – the brown and greens are simultaneously cut and mixed together in the same rotary motion; and this is repeated as you cultivate the field.

Technically, it is called the rotary tiller or rotary cultivator[2]. Australian Arthur Clifford Howard invented this one, patenting the design in 1920, hence it is also called the Howard Rotavator.

The Teaching_Learning Lesson From The Rotavator

If you don’t know anything and want to know more about a machine, go watch someone use it. Observe what happens, and then ask questions. If the fellow does not have the answer/s, so much more to learn!

In the case of the rotavator, I have been reading and writing about it since 08 November 2015 (see my essay “Women, Urban Agriculture & InangLupa[3],” A Magazine Called Love), so I know much about it.

But the lesson here is not to know more from me about the rotavator but to know more about something you don’t know, so that you can begin to understand and then in a little while teach! That is to say, even if the subject – or object – is foreign to you, you can approach to learn about it intelligently:

Understanding what it does is
the beginning of understanding
how it works!

Now I remember – that’s exactly what happened to me when I began to get interested in learning how to do word processing using WordStar Version 1 – starting 28 December 1985, or 35 years ago! First I had to study the commands – I already knew how to type – the first one of course being how to operate the desktop computer and then open WordStar to get to work on something I was writing.

To appreciate how the rotavator works, compare what happens with the disc plow – it throws up chunks of soil from below, inverts them, and leaves them to dry up. There is no mixing of soil and anything green growing – no layer of mulch formed over the surface of the field. Now then:

I’m telling you: It is that surface mulch that is your secret organic fertilizer!@517

 

 

 

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[1]https://cy0520.en.ec21.com/CY80_Tiller_Cultivator_Hand_Tractor--6333548_8566349.html

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivator

[3]https://amagazinecalledlove.blogspot.com/2015/11/women-urban-agriculture-inanglupa.html?view=classic

Andres Bonifacio Should Have Thought More. He Was Well-Read, And That’s Almost My Hero!

 

I'm a teacher, Civil Service Professional Level, and I want to teach what others have ignored about this other PH National Hero.

30 November 2020. Today is the 157^th birthday of Andres Bonifacio, who was born into a middle-class family, not poor[1] (ANN, globe.com.ph). Also according to ANN, he is variously known as “The Great Plebeian,” “Supremo of the Katipunan,” “Father of the Philippine Revolution,” and “First President of the Philippines.” I believe he deserves all those titles.

I am surprised to learn from ANN that the Bonifacios were not plebeian. His mother Catalina De Castro was a half-Spanish mestiza. He spent his early years in Cebu, where his parents hired a tutor for his arithmetic and Spanish. He had 5 siblings; they were orphaned when he was 14 years old. To support his siblings, he had to work – while doing that, he taught himself English while employed as a clerk-messenger by a British firm[2] (Wikipedia). He read voraciously, such as about the US Presidents, Les Miserables, Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo, and history of the French Revolution. With his readings, “he laid down the foundation for the Katipunan – its strict moral codes, means of recruitment and mission-vision[3]” (Alen Gonzales, Inquirer.net).
(books image[4] from Inc.com)

We have been wrong thinking about Bonifacio’s thinking – like, he did consider education as the initial way for the Filipinos to improve their lives, having read Noli, but in the end he still insisted on an armed struggle, consistent with a radical interpretation of the Fili, when Rizal was arrested and deported to Dapitan. To me, through the Fili author Jose Rizal is telling the reader:

Armed struggle will get you nowhere!
(image of Bonifacio thinking[5] from manilatimes.net)

Bonifacio was killed by his passion – as was the rebel leader in Fili.

What I’m learning from all of the above is that Revolution is more persuasive than Reform if you want to change society.

But I prefer a Revolution of the Word rather than a Revolution of the Sword.

My phrase “the Word” has 2 meanings: Intellectual and Spiritual, that is, man’s knowledge gained through Man’s Science and God’s love gained through His Grace.

Sustainable practices in farming, for instance, will deliver us from the evils of man’s own destruction of his world. If Science disobeys the laws of Nature, which are the laws of God, Science and Man will not survive. Violence against the wealth of the world will deprive Man of the riches that God intended for him.

Bonifacio wanted the Philippines free from the abuses and tyranny of the Spanish friars who were the rulers of the country, yes. But not from the abuse and tyranny of government and the ruling class, now Filipino!

Bonifacio was married to his second wife Gregoria De Jesus through a Catholic ceremony in Binondo Church in March 1893 (Wikipedia). The rulers of the Philippines at that time were Roman Catholic clergy – how could the Church save itself?

Rizal was right – only Education will Save the Soul of the Filipino!@517

 

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[1]https://www.globe.com.ph/go/entertainment/article/andres-bonifacio-facts.html#gref

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrés_Bonifacio

[3]https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/351927/andres-bonifacio-unconventional-thinker/

[4]https://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/why-you-should-be-reading-books-every-day-according-to-science.html

[5]https://www.manilatimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/robin-padilla20161130.jpg