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

“Golden Rice, Golden Opportunity To Think Better, More, Wider, Deeper, Higher! Only Being Anti-Golden Rice Is Definitely Anti-Intellectual!” – Frank A Hilario

Why didn’t I think of it before? The so-called Golden Rice, a product of R&D by IRRI in the Philippines, has been bashed, objected to, opposed, rallied against by activists here and abroad. Now, those who question the intelligence of those plant breeders, or of IRRI, or of Bill Gates who financed the project, are not being intelligent about it!

This has something to do with thinking Critically andthinking Creatively. Those Antis are only thinking Critically, sorry to say. You have to consider more – to show that you are more intelligent than the side you are opposing!

First, what is Golden Rice?

ANN says (Author Not Named, undated, “Genetically Modified Organisms: The Golden Rice Debate,” NYU Langone Health, med.nyu.edu)

Golden Rice is a genetically modified, biofortified crop. Biofortification increases the nutritional value of crops. Golden Rice is genetically modified to produce beta-carotene, which is not normally present in rice. Beta-carotene is converted into vitamin A when metabolized by the human body. We need vitamin A for healthier skin, immune systems, and vision.

Personally, I accept the logic contained in the above 41-word paragraph. The facts are scientifically stated, with no embellishment of any kind. This is a technical Editor In Chief speaking with many years of international WFH experience.

Next: What are the objections to Golden Rice?

ANN says:

Those in opposition say the project is deeply flawed. Friends of the Earth and MASIPAG agree that merely planting golden rice will not solve the VAD [Vitamin A Deficiency] crisis. They point out that other planned solutions for malnutrition as well as programs currently in place are cheaper and do not require GMOs [Genetically Modified Organisms], thereby making Golden Rice unnecessary.

The Hidden Lesson In Creative Thinking About Golden Rice

The Golden Rice Project began in 1999, when two professors, Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer, proposed to genetically engineer rice to add to its natural nutritional value. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded the project, which succeeded in its goal.

Golden Rice was approved for planting on 28 July 2021 (isaaa.org).

What Now? If You Oppose Golden Rice, Think Better!

Being merely anti-Golden Rice is anti-intellectual. Because thinking critically is only half of intelligent thinking; the betterhalf is thinking creatively. Those who oppose Golden Rice – as a thinkerer(my coinage), I do not oppose Golden Rice: I oppose only half-thinking – for their own sake, they should seriously consider campaigning hard against what they consider Enemy. Today, media campaigns are inexpensive –

Facebook is free; blogging is free!

The Golden Rice Project says, “Golden Rice is part of the solution” (goldenrice.org). Note: “part of the solution.” That should be a deciding point – those who are pro-Golden Rice are not claiming that it is the only solution!

The only solution to the problem of those who are anti-Golden Rice is for them to practice more in terms of thinking more intelligently. In this Digital Age, if you are thinking only of being anti, you are only half-thinking!@517

“IR8,” The Miracle That Was – Thank You, IRRI! “IR9” Or “RiceRiches,” The Miracle That We Need Today To Solve Poverty As Well As Resolve Climate Change! Thank You, PhilRice?

2 Presidents, 1 History in the Use of Technology for the Good of the People, Democracy – US President Lyndon “LBJ” Johnson and PH President Ferdinand “FM” Marcos – celebrating the Golden Year of The Birth of IRRI’s “Miracle Rice.”

Today’s news shared on Facebook was written 55 years ago today by now-retired Gene Hetteland is reprinted in IRRI’s own Rice Today (04 April 2022, “Celebrating 50 Years Of IR8: US President Johnson Makes Historic Visit To IRRI With Stirring Words,” ricetoday.irri.org):

This year, 2016, IRRI is observing and celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of IR8, the first semi-dwarf rice variety that would ultimately change the face of agriculture across Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere.

In the above 1966 photo, that is LBJ kneeling, behind him FM standing next to IRRI Director General Robert Chandler Jr who is giving the briefing. All around is IR8, the rice variety bred to be very low in height but very high in yield. This will, LBJ says, “do more to escalate [the international efforts to win] the war against hunger than anything that I know of that is being done today. So, I congratulate President Marcos.” (Note: IRRI is based in the Philippines, offices & laboratories & experimental fields next to the campus of then-UP College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños.)

LBJ is sure to note that FM is “so excited and who has described it to me fully today” – referring to IR8. Who would not have been excited? I don’t have the data from the Philippines, but I have this one from India. Justin Rowlatt reports from BBC (“IR8: The Miracle Rice Which Saved Millions Of Lives,” 01 Dec 2016, BBC News, bbc.com), that Indian farmer Nekkanti Subba Rao said he used to harvest 1 ton/ha – with IR8, he was now harvesting 10 tons/ha. 1 became 10 – It’s a miracle!

During that historic occasion, LBJ says, mentioning the world’s billions of people in need of food and identifying people who should produce such:

If the world’s need for food is to be met, it will be by scientists and economists who will discover better seeds, who will find better methods of planting, who will give us better ways of distributing the harvest of the earth. It will not be by “miracles,” but by the qualities of dedicated minds that we find working right here tonight in the new Los Baños rice strain.

But I’m a stubborn Filipino; I insist on another miracle. I call it “RiceRiches” – from PhilRice’s highly productive initiative “Palayamanan” (“palay” for rice, “yamanan” for riches multiplying – my free translation). Where a different “Miracle of 1 becoming 10” unravels. I call that magic “IR9,” that is, Interplanting Rice with 9 other crops in the same field & growing them at the same time. IR9: That’s 10 crops productive in the same plot of land in the same season – rice farmers would never have it so abundantly!@517

Where Is Climate Change Coming From? I Say, Much Worldwide From Farmers Applying Nitrogen, Phosphorus & Potassium (NPK) For Their Crops. Thus, Farmers Are Fertilizing Climate Change!

With the Climate Crisis, those engaged in agriculture worldwide must wake up to the reality that farming in whatever size or scale or system is a heavy contributor to greenhouse gases (GHGs) that directly/indirectly generate climate change. How? Getting the facts is Easy! Accepting the facts is Hard! (This is also my challenge to Philippine fact-checking journalists with their de facto-leader, Rappler’s Maria Ressa, Filipina Nobel Prize 2021 winner.)

Above, on Facebook, the group “Farmers And Agriculture Industries Worldwide” (in Tagalog) “sells the virtues” of the chemical fertilizers NPK, that is, N for faster growth, P for flowering, and K for fruits & protection. I will grant that the group is 100% technically correct – but chemical agriculture (CA) is the one that is contributing much to climate change by producing so much greenhouse gases (GHGs). Being good at being technical is not always being good!

I insist on the practice of the world’s new Agricultural Gospel – Regenerative Agriculture.

I say, the much-healthier alternative in agriculture is organic agriculture (OA). (I say, the group’s upper image is symbolic of regeneration.)

In saying “regenerative organic agriculture,” I want to emphasize that OA is reproductive of the good, as many as 3 times healthier than chemical agriculture (CA), because with OA practice, we have:

1. Healthier Pockets

2. Healthier Bodies

3. Healthier Villages.

Healthier Pockets

If you apply organic fertilizer in your farming, no matter the source or method of preparing materials, you are saving much in terms of cost – chemical fertilizers cost thousands of pesos while you can produce your own organic fertilizer with minimal expense. If the cost of your farming is light, with income your pocket will become heavy. (I will tackle “organic certification” some other time.)

Pertinently: I recommend that the Department of Agriculture (DA) itself produce the organic fertilizers and distribute it at fair cost – or no cost at all! Calling the attention of Agriculture Secretary William Dar.

Healthier Bodies

Sans chemical fertilizers with their ingredients causing human nutrient-imbalance, with healthy foods grown in farms and gardens, every single human will grow healthier bodies – automatically. Then each one of us will be following the ancient wisdom of Hippocrates who said: “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.”

Healthier Villages

With organic fertilizers spread all over the Philippines and zero chemical fertilizers applied, there will be zero GHGs emanating from farms and gardens – quietly if not quickly resolving the climate crisis. If we do notrequire our farmers to be pocket-conscious plus health-conscious plus village-conscious, we are not being intelligent beings!

My Personal Contribution To Everybody’s Health

Not being a farmer or gardener, and as a retired teacher but an active digital thinkerer (my coinage) ever since 2000, my contribution here continues to be my blogging, which is mostly intellectual and in which I apply my theory that I call “Communication for Village Development in the 21^st Century” (CoViD21).

CoViD21: Fertile thoughts for fertile minds!@517

“Carbon-Wise Rice” Searca Is Promoting – Anti-Climate Change. “Carbon-Wise Rice Grown With Other Crops,” I Am Promoting

Today, with the climate crisis upon us, we have to watch out that we eliminate our carbon footprints! Especially farmers, if you ask me, an agriculturist.

That is why I was intrigued with this news from Searca written by Leander C Domingo: “Searca Senior Fellow Presents Carbon[-]Wise Rice Concept” (31 March 2022, Manila Times, manilatimes.net). It is wise to reduce our carbon footprint, preferably eliminate it altogether!
(carbon footprint from Green Policy 360, greenpolicy360.net)

Mr Domingo quotes Eero Nissila, Finland-based consultant & Searca senior fellow, as saying:

Rice carbon footprint contributes to global GHG [greenhouse gas], methane and agricultural nitrous oxide emissions.

So, as much rice as we plant, as much GHGs we contribute!

Mr Nissila says there are 3 major structural changes that should be made in Southeast Asian agriculture:

1. Technology leap in mechanization and digitalization
2. Farms reorganizing their operations
3. Evolving farm products from traditional to circular bioeconomy-based

Mechanization & Digitalization

Our Department of Agriculture (DA) with its agency PhilMech has been busy innovating equipment and machines for PH Agriculture. But PH DA is not into needs-based digitalization – that I have been loudly advocating since at least 2018 when I said:

“I want digital agriculture knowledge now!”

I said that in my essay “Big Data Beyond EXPLOREit@ICRISAT” (07 Sept 2018, Creative Thinkering, Blogspot.com).

I don’t see any problem Digitalizing Agriculture. Lack of expertise is a bad excuse for not digitalizing – all my digital skills today I taught myself starting when I was already 45 years old.

Pertinently in 2003, on my own, I produced a digital 198-page book, The Geography Of Knowledge, dedicated to internetizing agriculture. I was PhilRice consultant for the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture(OpAPA), the OpAPA proposal submitted to PhilRice by then-Director General of India-based ICRISAT William Dar, the same who is the current PH Secretary of Agriculture.

That is to say, Frank A Hilario wrote the book on the digitalization of PH Agriculture 19 years ago!

Farms Reorganizing Their Operations

Mr Dar has conceptualized OneDA and been leading the DA and attached agencies towards clustering farmer operations within a farmers group, or several groups, or within cooperatives. This is for economies of scale.

Traditional Vs Biotech Farm Products

If by “bioeconomy” is meant the use of biotechnology to produce farm products – not interested. I prefer biological products, not genetically manipulated, grown by natural or organic farming methods.

Nissila also says:

Carbon[-]Wise Rice is produced with minimal emission from the soil, optimal use of fertilizers, proper water management, use of the most suitable varieties, and use of renewable energy.

“Optimal use of fertilizers” – that refers to chemicalfertilizers, which are greenhouse gas-hustlers. In the worldwide war against Climate Change, as a self-anointed Apostleof Regenerative Agriculture, I advocate instead the maximal use of organic fertilizers.

Multiple Crops

We have to be carbon-wise as well as crop-wise to be business-wise: With multiple crops collectively guarding against harmful organisms – pesticides eliminated:

Healthy foods for villagers, healthy pockets for farmers – What more could we ask for?!@517

“DA-IRRI Collaboration, Including Initiatives In Crop Diversification” – Reports William Dar, PH Secretary Of Agriculture. “Man Does Not Live On Rice Alone!” – Frank A Hilario

I have never been happier about rice than hearing from Secretary of Agriculture William Dar about the Department of Agriculture’s (DA’s) “strengthened partnership” with IRRI as reported by Eireene Jairee Gomez 26 March 2022.

The partnership is via PhilRice, a DA agency. Can you guess the magic words in these 2 paragraphs from Ms Eireene’s report “DA Intensifies Partnership With IRRI” (Manila Times, manilatimes.net):

"With all the challenges that Philippine agriculture is facing right now, we have responded to the urgent need to rethink current policies on food production. The DA is ready to propose and present to the incoming administration the food sovereignty roadmap," Dar told IRRI officials led by Director General Jean Balié.

For his part, Balié (enumerated) priorities for DA-IRRI collaboration, including initiatives (in) crop diversification and conduct of more demand-South-South partnership, which aims to strengthen the research expertise and capacity of rice-growing countries in the region.

You could not have guessed it, but these are the 5 words that made me “rejoice and be exceeding glad” (borrowing from Handel’s Messiah):

“… including initiatives in crop diversification.”

Both agencies were born many years ago: IRRI 1960, PhilRice 1985 – and yet both international and national agencies have persisted in carrying out research & development (R&D) works strictly and singly on rice, while this truth should have been obvious before IRRI was born:

Man does not live on rice alone!

Above, the lower image is of a Palayamanan model farm (from Facebook, m.faceboo.com). “Palayamanan” is a combination of 2 Tagalogwords: “palay” (rice) and “yaman” (riches). My translation: RiceRiches. I can’t find the information on when and who conceptualized RiceRiches as an R&D project, but I think it has been there since at least the year 2000.

Now then, I do not understand why PhilRice “faltered” on Palayamanan while IRRI never minded this farming innovation enough to study it further for Asians other than Filipinos.

I thinkerer remind both PhilRice and IRRI by repeating to say:
“Man does not live on rice alone!”

Palayamanan is featured in PhilRice’s website “Pinoy Rice Knowledge Bank” (pinoyrice.com) with this list (numbering mine) of:

BENEFITS
1. Continuous food supply
2. Higher income and economic stability
3. Increased farm productivity and sustainability
4. Reduced production risk
5. Maximized use of land or better resource allocation
6. Enhanced diversity and ecological balance
7. More crops for the market (I added this one).

Now then, all these years, why has PhilRice not literally distributed those multiple benefits all over the Philippines?!

Not too late. Since I see that the Palayamanan website itself is uninviting and lacks options for decision, I am volunteering as a one-man band to write, edit, and layout, up to a pdf copy, a resource book titled RiceRiches written in English understandable by high schoolers; later, translated to major languages – produced & printed within 57 days. Budget from the DA please!

Palayamanan (RiceRiches) is Manna from Heaven that has been denied to Mortals far too long!@517

Mr Comelec, What You Want As The Next President Is A Wo/Man With A Voice, Not Vision; A Wo/Man With A Mouth, Not Mission. Our PH Needs A Servant Leader Running It, Not Ruining It!

As a retired teacher but daily practitioner of critical & creative thinking, I see that Mr Comelec wants our next President to be Quite Argumentative, Not Quite Administrative. Pity my beloved country, my Philippines!
(Images: Debate, from iStock, istockphoto.com, Leadership, from PA Times, patimes.org)

I am reading Danica Fernandez’ news report “Poll Exec To Congress: Pass Law Requiring Presidential Debate, Penalizing Skippers” (31 March 2022, Inquirer, Inquirer.net):

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner George Garcia appealed to Congress on Thursday to come up with a new law mandating presidential debates and penalizing those who will refuse to attend the event.

With Mr Garcia wanting a “Comelec Debates Law,” the Comelec effectively declares that the most outstanding qualification of a Presidentiable is a debating prowess, the fellow being a critical thinker who is good at discerning the pros and cons of any proposed national policy, program or project.

Thereby, the Comelec is looking for a President who can knock down any opposition to any presidential policy at any time. Quite dangerous! The thing is, the President is supposed to serve the interests of the people, not his own.

The Comelec should be but is not looking for a President who can see the future in terms of a National Vision, Mission & Strategy that s/he masterminds and helps create a Roadmap for. Horrors! The Comelec is looking for a Dignified Debater as President, not a Visionary Vanguard!

I am not a manager myself; I have not attended a single seminar held by the Asian Institute of Management, but I have been observing since 2007 a Filipino who has proven himself to be a Servant Leader – whom I believe the Philippine President should be.

He is Secretary of Agriculture William Dar. No, he is not running for any elective office. No, he does not know I’m doing this; I am citing him as a Visionary Leader.

Mr Dar was Director General (DG) of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India for 15 years. As Servant Leader DG, he successfully managed ICRISAT to rise from dead last to #1 among the 15 international agricultural research centers under the CGIAR, which include Los Baños-based IRRI!

His Vision for ICRISAT was: “Science with a human face.” You cannot lead an institution, much less a country, successfully, without Vision. How can your people follow your leadership without proclaiming where you want your country to go?

Considering the Climate Crisis, the Vision for the Philippines by the President should be: “Science with a Filipino face.” Science must serve the interests of Filipinos, and the best President should already have expressed those interests when s/he was still a presidentiable.

Instead of a “Comelec Debates Law,” the Comelec should be sponsoring “Vision Seminars,” each Presidentiable presenting his/her Program of Government, from Vision to Mission to Strategies, including the necessary people participation. To Good be the glory!@517