Are There Experts In The Twin Problems & Prognoses Of Farmer Poverty And Climate Change? Asking For A Friend!

Foreign experts have positive outlooks on the Philippines’ economic growth for 2023, says Niña Myka Pauline Arceo (01 March 2023, “PH Gets Better Growth Outlook,” Manila Times, manilatimes.net): “Global and domestic headwinds will weigh on Philippine economic growth this year, but the country could still perform much better than initially expected given its fundamentals and better-than-expected results last year, experts said Tuesday.”

Top image shows Denmark’s Ambassador to PH Franz-Michael Skjold Mellbin; World Bank Country Director for Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Thailand Ndiame Diop; Central Bank Senior Asst Gov Iluminada Sicat, and Ben Kritz, columnist of The Manila Times, at the Times-sponsored economic forum 28 Feb 2023, Manila.

The country's medium-term potential growth remained close to 6.5 percent, [IMF Resident Representative Ragnar] Gudmundsson said, reflecting dividends from recent structural reforms. An improvement in foreign investments, continued reforms and productivity gains could raise this closer to government targets.

From IMF, Ms Nina says there is more optimistic outlook:

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged 7.6 percent last year, exceeding the government's 6.5- to 7.5-percent target, due to strong consumer spending, employment gains, and a continued economic reopening.

As a UP Los Baños alumnus, BSA major in Ag Edu (1965) and an Internet hound, I have no doubt at all about what those economic experts are saying, and predicting, and as a Filipino I welcome their positive GDP prognoses – but I as an agriculturist & a teacher am very much more interested in directly helping improve farmers’ incomes and resolve the climate’s outcomes – Farmer Poverty and Climate Change – my double-focus since Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. (And no, those economic experts from Denmark, World Bank, the Philippines’ own Central Bank, and the columnist of Manila Times “talked business” – but not the farming business that is suffering from the ravages of Climate Change, and innocent-looking Chemical Agriculture.

Here is encouraging news for me, from Mindanao. ANN says, “Zambo Sibugay Guv Palma Wants Farmers To Say Bye To Chemical Fertilizers” (Author Not Named, 19 Oct 2016, Politiko Visayas, visayas.politics.com.ph). The lower image comes from this source – we are looking at the source of the biggest problem of them: Chemical Agriculture! All those chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides happily being “circulated” by farmers (lower image) are killing the pests but at the same time are actually wrecking havoc on the economy in 2 ways – popular agriculture is making farmers poor and citizens wretched by way of super this and super that: droughts, floods, landslides, typhoons – all these reducing farm produce and farmers’ incomes. Chemical agriculture is at the same time expensive and generates greenhouse gases that generate Climate Change.

Thus: Collectively, the farmers themselves are generating their own problems!

As Zambo Zibugay Governor Wilter Palma tells us, we must kiss goodbye chemical agriculture and kiss welcome organic farming. I see his EO 1011-09-05-16-009 on organic farming “will make the local agricultural products free from toxic substances” – and farmers richer.

We Filipinos need more provincial governors like Wilter Palma!@517

Open Up! UP Open University (UPOU), You Have Had Your Doors & Windows Half-Opened To The World Since You Were Born!

Its campus next to IRRI in Los Baños, the UP Open University (UPOU) celebrated its 28^th Anniversary, Thursday, 23 Feb 2023, and I, a self-taught writer and digital denizen since 1991 and UP Los Baños alumnus (1965), neither knew nor had an idea! And you know what? My daughter Teresa Leonor studied there many years ago – she was already a BS Com Sci graduate of UP Los Baños – but she quit when strict physical attendance of classes was required of her and she was (still is) a Project Manager of Unisys in the Philippines. Today, more than before, I believe the UPOU should be completely, 100% digital!

Above, Jovita Movillon’s sharing on Facebook, Friday, 24 Feb 2023, is accompanied with this text:

LOOK: The UP Open University (UPOU) is celebrating its 28th Anniversary at the UPOU Headquarters, Los Banos, Laguña, with the theme “University of the Future: Reimaginations, Reconfigurations, Realizations.”

My Editor In Chief’s eyes instantly saw that one: “Los Banos, Laguña” – the first time that strange creature appeared since I was Freshman 1^st Sem 1959 at the UP College of Agriculture with campus in the town of Los Baños in Laguna.

The error of their ways. Not only that. I am looking at the Facebook page of UP Open University (UPOU), and I am reading the announcement last year:

UP Open University (UPOU) is celebrating its 27th Anniversary on 23 February 2022, with the theme University of the Future: Reimaginations, Reconfigurations, Realizations.

Established on 23 February 1995, UPOU pioneered online teaching and learning and continues to play a leading role in the study and practice of open learning and distance education in the Philippines.

Did you notice – the UPOU repeats its 2022 celebration theme this year, 2023, word for word – at 28, forgetful already?! At 82, I don’t mind if they get me to be their online Editor In Chief!

I am digitally self-taught from typing to editing desktop publishing up to creating the pdf, which is the electronic file that goes into printing the distribution copies.

Like, I am challenging the UPOU to reimagine itself, reconfigure itself – and come out with correspondence courses (plural, in case you did not notice) built on Regenerative Agriculture, because that is The Call of the Hour. (See my essay, “After Heading IRRI Pushing “Green Revolution” For Asians, MS Swaminathan Intellectualized “Evergreen Revolution” For All!” (24 Feb. 2023, THiNK Journalism, ithinkjournalism.blogspot.com). Humans, unless we regenerate the Earth, especially in our farms, there is no future for us humans!

And how will the UPOU finance those innumerable courses, short and long, degree or non-degree, for people anywhere? The UPOU could apply for educational loans and/or subsidy from the mother agency, the UP System, and/or submit a budget for an original program to the Asian Development Bank, USAID, or World Bank, for such purposes.

I am volunteering right now to be part of the digital committee to generate, package, review and finalize such a huge institutional plan, literally a million-dollar proposal!@517

The Evergreen Habitats Are Coming Up! I Hope. In The Philippines, Starting With The Banaue Rice Terraces

Above image: Isn’t that beautiful? It is! But it’s a dull beauty – it does not excite the senses. That is true with all nature-based tourist spots in the Philippines: They excite only the eyes.

Now is the time for all good minds to come to the aid of their countrymen – Now then, the Banaue Rice Terraces as a package is much an unfulfilled beauty because it embellishes the landscape but enhances not the human scape – the truth that which has been hidden from it since the first rice terraces were built by humans more than 2000 years ago (Britannica, britannica.com).
(“Rice terraces” from guidetothephilippines.ph)

Don’t forget: Climate Change is out there! Now then, the rice terraces need happy humans; our habitats need happy humans to cultivate them into happy relationships – Plants with Animals with Humans. I realized that only today; that is why I have come up with this new blog: Our Happy Habitat, with the new slogan, “Cultivate Happy Relationships.” To encourage people to encourage the landscapes to encourage people!

Such as: In the 1960s, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) came up with “Miracle Rice” (the variety “IR8”) that which I know began the Green Revolution in Asia – it yielded high in grains for the harvests and high in gains for the farmers. The Father of the Green Revolution in India was MS Swaminathan, who had been IRRI Director General. But Mr Swaminathan was not content – he saw beyond the grains & gains of the Green Revolution and brainstormed what he called The Evergreen Revolution.

Learning from Mr Swaminathan, that is what the Banaue Rice Terraces and such other habitats are calling for from us: The Evergreen Revolution. Silently. Their beauty is superficial now because in fact where they are, the Once-Evergreen has faded and, therefrom, its Eden-like kingdom of natural wealth and services has deteriorated.

With this new blog, I have a new mission; I am now calling for “The Evergreen Habitats.” Yes, the Banaue rice terraces, among other habitats, must be Evergreen: for the sake of tourists, for the people of Banaue – for us all!

Now then, those rice terraces must practice what is called “Regenerative Agriculture.” A simple reminder for “regenerative” is “organic” – so that for instance, you apply compost on the soil and zero chemical fertilizers and pesticides. You various crops whose growth relationships naturally take care of pests and diseases.

Former Secretary of Agriculture William Dar has declared himself a disciple of Regenerative Agriculture; in fact, the 1^st MS Swaminathan Global Leadership Award was given to Mr Dar last year, 10 Nov 2022 in India – after which he vowed to be a disciple of RA (you may want to read his column, “Servant Leadership Is What We Need,” 10 Nov 2022, Manila Times, manilatimes.net).

Regenerative agriculture requires a variety of organic methods and of crops. William Cowper said long ago: “Variety is the spice of life.” What our variety of habitats are commonly missing in their relationships with us humans is spice!@517

Nestor Maniebo Pestelos’ Under- & Aboveground Experiences From UP Los Baños Through Martial Law To Abroad To Bohol Are Worth X Million Dollars – He Has An Unfinished Book!

Betty Hemsley, American poetess, has “Talking To The Wild” – her collection of poems she calls “The Bedtime Stories We Never Knew” (facebook.com). Ampy, my wife, saw this one, link shared on Facebook by my old friend Felix Eslava 26 Feb 2023. My wife says this reminds her of my old friend Nestor Pestelos, who shared about a year ago on Facebook that he has begun and I notice he has stopped writing what could be his last book of un-pleasant memories.

From Ms Betty’s book:

We all of us have chapters
That we wish we’d never written
Pages that we’ve torn or burned
Or locked away and hidden
We all have masks and costumes
That we wish we’d never worn
And lines that we have spoken
That we wish could be withdrawn
We all of us have characters
We’d strike clean from the page
And maybe big decisions
That we’re desperate to change
And we are very tempted
To pretend they don’t exist
To tell a perfect story
Where these things are all dismissed
But do not hide those chapters
They’re your story’s little scars
And they’re crucial to your tale
Though you might not think they are
See without them all your story
Isn’t quite the one you wrote
And we have to make mistakes
If we’re to learn what matters most
Yes, without them all your story
Will be hard to comprehend
Remember - some things only make sense
When we’re getting to the end

Nestor was a batchmate of mine at UPCA, now UP Los Baños, in the early 1960s. We met, he a Tagalog from Tiaong, Quezon, and I an Ilocano from Asingan, Pangasinan – because we joined the competition to find the Editor In Chief of the student paper Aggie Green & Gold (AGG). He won – but I also won because he made me the historical 1^st Tagalog Editor of the AGG who was an Ilocano! (I could be, because in high school, I was already an avid reader of the Tagalog magazines Liwaywayand Bulaklak.) That is how our friendship started – on paper!

Before or after (I don’t know) our President Ferdinand “FM” Edralin Marcos declared Martial Law on 21 Sept 1972, Nestor joined the underground. (Elsewhere, I was “invited” but I declined as it was not my cup of tea. My “inviter” has since died, of natural causes.) Nestor today is aboveground – first, for having been saved from physical harm by “Fr Acong” (Fr Ciriaco Sevilla); second, by First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, yes, “embracing” him in her project “Habitat For Humanity” – and no, Nestor never forgets how important they are!

But Nestor forgets and/or hesitates and/or neglects to continue writing his book to share with the world! I quote Jerry Pratchett saying above (quotefancy.com): “You can’t die with an unfinished book.” Here I am saying, “You can, but why should you?!” Note that Ms Betty’s poem has no period at the end

Climate Change in PH Is Imported From The United States! How To Start Green Growth And Stop Grim Deaths?

Are you worried about the Philippines’ foreign debt landscape growing from Billions of US$ to Trillions? You should be! But as an agriculturist, I am more interested in the Philippines’ agricultural landscape growing deadlier than ever even while farmers are growing poorer.

Conscious and Unconscious – we are all aware that we are all food consumers, but only a few realize that the production of our food, in millions of hectares of farms, including greenhouse farms, is the public source of Climate Change.

Yes Sir, yes Ma’am! All of us food consumers have a huge role to play to help change the climate of PH external debts – and surprise, climate change!

Actually, you can see that the Business Climate and the Farming Climate are interlinked with the citizens via the Consumption Climate –if you look deeper into Climate Change– but it is hidden in the business climate of Export-Import.

That is what I’m thinking reading the news report of Cai U Ordinario, “PHL Debt Needs A Decade To Cut; Time To Shift To Green Growth” (23 Mar 2022, BusinessMirror, businessmirror.com.ph). Ms Cai quotes retired professor Teodoro C Mendoza as saying, during a forum of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC):

“We have a comatose economy because we have a huge debt of PhP13 trillion which is equivalent to 68 percent of our GDP. We have a budget deficit of PhP1.7 trillion,” Mendoza said in the vernacular on Wednesday.

Ms Cai also reports:

In order to improve the country’s chances of attaining higher growth, FDC President Rene E Ofreneo cited a need to focus not just on the primary strength of the economy but also on attaining green growth.

We think we have today “Green Growth” but is actually “Grim Growth!” without us realizing it.

Thus, gladly we Filipinos import chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides – sadly, we harvest not only the very visible farm crops (and farm animals) – but the deadliest crop of them all: Climate Change.
(“Food Vs Planet” from bing.com, “Climate Adaptation” from climateadaptationplatform.com)

Now then, if we want to Stop Climate Change, we have to Stop Chemical Agriculture and Start Regenerative Agriculture! When we get rid of all those bags of fertilizers and bottles of pesticides and produce our food by any of natural ways, we will start to see that the climate changes for the better!

To “generate” means to “bring into being; give rise to” (American Heritage Dictionary, thefreedictionary.com). To “regenerate” is to produce again; thus, organic methods “reproduce” the ways by which Mother Nature works – no GHGs that could destroy us all, rich and poor. With regenerative agriculture, still the climate changes, but no more supertyphoons and superhot days and super-landslides and super-floods!

With regenerative farming, we achieve 2 things: (1) solve Farmer Poverty and (2) resolve Climate Change. In agriculture, chemical methods are very expensive; organic methods are pocket-friendly – the farmer wins! And organic methods produce zero greenhouse gases, and therefore zero super-climate changes – the people win! 

How green is our valley!@517

Recyclable, Renewable, Or Regenerative? Commercial Citizens Of Competitive Countries Don’t Want You To Discern & Discriminate!

Are you surprised to read “sustainable agriculture vs regenerative agriculture”? You should be! SA versus RA, yes. Today, The Modern 3 Rs, as I see them, are Recyclable, Renewable and Regenerative – and no, they are not compatible or parallel at all. One addresses Climate Change, the others do not. 
(Images: top from researchgate.net, bottom from m.facebook.com)

To give you an idea, when I search
for “renewable energy” Google gives me 273,000,000 results;
for “renewable resources” Google gives me 16,400,000 results;
for “regenerative energy” Google gives me 176,000 results; and
for “regenerative resources” Google gives me 51,800 results.

Those differing numbers of search results give you the idea that those terms are as different as morning, noon, and evening!

Essentially, it is between renewable and regenerative processes – and there’s a whale of a difference!

Now you see why I have been interested in differentiating “renewable” from “regenerative” – in my search for countrywide (and countrywise) solution to Climate Change, I see only “Regenerative Agriculture” and not Renewable Agriculture or even Sustainable Agriculture.

Renewable Agriculture and Sustainable Agriculture people do nottalk about Climate Change – because Sustainable Agriculture does not prevent the generation of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which generate Climate Change. Same story with Renewable Agriculture – what is renewable is not necessarily harmless to the environment.

“Sustainable Or Regenerative?” is the question the ethical butcher asks (09 Nov 2021, ethicalbutcher.co.uk):

A very simple definition for sustainable is something that is able to be maintained at a certain rate or level.

The problem we have now is that every business and everybody want to be sustainable in our consumption; we all want to be carry on as we are, consuming what we enjoy but in a way that doesn't negatively impact the ability to continue in the future.

By definition, anything that relies on a finite resource is not sustainable; a good example of this is fossil fuels usage as once they are used they cannot be re-used, we can reformulate burnt petroleum back into more petroleum. However, it could be argued that aluminum is sustainable as it can be recycled indefinitely, as long as we can sustainably produce the energy to do so – it quickly gets complicated.

Since we're involved in food production, let's now look at how the term sustainable is applied to the things we eat.

Intensive factory farming could be called sustainable; the sheds could be powered by renewable electricity and the animals fed grains which we could, in theory produce indefinitely. This type of farming is sometimes called 'sustainable intensification' which really stretches the definition of the term to its limits.

Most agriculture is not sustainable…

… sustainable practices seek to maintain systems without degrading them. Regenerative practices recognize how natural systems are currently impacted and apply techniques to restore systems…

Regenerative means able to or tending to regenerate – to regrow or be renewed or restored, especially after being damaged or lost. The act or process of regenerating… this is what our planet desperately needs.

Need this agriculturist say more?!@517

Reminiscing The 1986 Philippine People Power Revolution – And Missing The Point Of It All!

Saturday, 25 Feb 2023 – we are celebrating the 37^th anniversary of the “EDSA People Power Revolution.” Except that we are putting “power” in the wrong perspective. In the prevailing thinking of Filipinos, “People Power” is the power to say “No!” and not the power to say “Yes!” For the sake of us people of the Philippine Islands, let us trace history and reminisce much. We owe it to ourselves – the people abusive of power are gone, but so what?!

(Lower image from manilatimes.net)

Rigoberto D Tiglao(25 Feb 2018, “Facts About EDSA we didn’t know at the time, hidden from us for decades,” Manila Times, manilatimes.net):

In 1986, Fidel Ramos was the chief of the Philippine Constabulary. A trusted aide of then-President Ferdinand Marcos [FM], he shocked the nation when he turned against his commander-in-chief and marched with the people in EDSA – hailed a hero by many.

I am now reading the book Silver Linings (25 Years of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution), authored by Melandrew T Velasco, co-authored by Rafael M Alunan III and Gen Reynaldo V Velasco(ret), 472 pages (including Index) – the copy sent to me by my friend JAQ last year. My wife Ampy had urged me to write today, “kind of paying tribute to FVR, especially his role not only during EDSA PPR but also after it [remember the numerous FAILED coup d’etats (putches) during Cory Aquino’s presidency....” And who am I to say “No” to my wife? Not to mention that Fidel Valdez Ramos (FVR) is a townmate, both of us natives of Asingan, Pangasinan.

The idiomatic phrase “silver lining” refers to “the potential for something positive or beneficial to result from a negative situation” (The Free Dictionary, idioms.thefreedictionary.com). “Silver linings” indicates many potentials – now I ask: “What are those? Have we tapped any of them?”

Published on May 2012 by The Ramos Peace And Development Foundation Inc (RPDEV), total 485 pages. As the very last words of the book, FVR asks: “KAYA BA NATIN ITO??” My translation: “Can we do this?” My response: “Yes Sir! We can!”

The question is: “Which is that which we can?” After FVR, I will now volunteer a concept that covers Filipinos of all creeds and communities: Regenerative Philippines (RP).

And I am happy to tell you, if you don’t already know, that I have been proselytizing about Regenerative Agriculture since at least 1 year ago – see my essay, “Transforming Ifugao Rice Terraces Into Food & Wood Wonders – I Wonder How?” (16 Jan 2022, Regenerative AgriForestry, reagriforestry.blogspot.com).

And so, fondly remembering FVR (who died last year), I ask: “Kaya ba natin ito??” Sir! Here are several demands and my exact same singular response:

“Down with corruption!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
“Down with red-tagging!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
 “Down with science for private gains!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
“Down with lack of leadership!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
 “Down with lack of landownership!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
“Down with Farmer Poverty!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
“Down with Climate Change!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!@517