What SCUs Philippines Must Learn & Teach For The New Agriculture Under William Dar

From the UNESDoc Library[1] – the main image shows just fields of crops growing; this is how limited the United Nations Education, Scientific & Cultural Organization, UNESCO, institutionally views agricultural education in the Philippines, unfortunately. 

UNESCO, that is certainly quite a narrow view!

This is a teacher speaking. An alumnus of the University of the Philippines’ College of Agriculture, now University of the Philippines Los Baños, graduating in 1965 with a BS Agriculture degree major in Ag Education, I am Civil Service eligible, Professional level, passing the first Teacher’s Exam in 1964 with a grade of 80.6%.

All the more I have been inspired to create this new blog of mine: SCUs Philippines.

I taught myself creative writing in science. I have these taglines in 2 of my numerous blogs. One: “Frank H, World's most highly original, creative writer online” – A Magazine Called Love[2]. Two: “World's creative genius online, most prolific writer of non-fiction. Frank A Hilario, Guru” – Creative Thinkering[3]. I have published at least 4,000 blogposts of a minimum 1,000 words each.

Credentials established, I hope, I PH teacher must say:

UNESCO, you must widen your perspective of PH education in agriculture!

In parallel, I say:

Schools, Colleges & Universities, SCUs, of the Philippines, here is a new lesson for you!

As a matter of fact, PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie has demanded in a Manila Times story that the SCUs teach themselves on the new agriculture: “Universities Asked To Reshape (Curriculas) On Agriculture Sector[4],” saying:

SUCs must reshape their (individual) curricular program based on the challenges and opportunities of the region. They must become the research and innovation (locales) of the region. They must produce highly knowledgeable and skilled human capital for agri-industrial development of the region.

Those 42 words constitute, as it were, a new mandate for PH SCUs!

All those 3 sentences taken together constitutes an extreme challenge – all the more I am inspired to produce this new blog – to help wake up the SCUs of the Philippines!

“SUCs must reshape their (individual) curricular program based on the challenges and opportunities of the region.” I teacher agree 100%. Our SCUs must become learners themselves before they can become teachers again – which ones are the obstacles and which ones are the opportunities in aggie education in their locales? Of course, paradigm shift, an obstacle should be looked at more intelligently as an opportunity.

“They must become the research and innovation (locales) of the region.” Research, the SCUs know how to do; they have been doing it since they were born. But to generate innovations? That is a new challenge to them, and they need advices from educators, businessmen, and local innovators.

“They must produce highly knowledgeable and skilled human capital for agri-industrial development of the region.” As I view the situation, the human capital must comprise the following: science managers, business managers, technicians, and instructors who are also creative thinkers – count me as a volunteer to help teach those girls and boys!@517

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[1]https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000061625

[2]https://amagazinecalledlove.blogspot.com

[3]https://creativethinkering.blogspot.com

[4]https://www.manilastandard.net/index.php/business/csr-mining/313853/universities-asked-to-reshape-curricular-on-agriculture-sector.html?fbclid=IwAR3jyoID5bcRVjVrVBndx2pjuLPV7CHLDcrEY4akTI0e5zcbHB_ghadRUeY#.Xg2Mm02MhYs.facebook

Thinking P2B, Youth Agripreneurs, Schools And The Metaphor Of The Factory – SCUs For The New PH Agriculture!

Personally, I do not know Fr Benigno P Beltran, SVD, but thank you, Father, for your Facebook post, about the fires of learning, for teaching this teacher!

A very wide reader, BS Agriculture graduate major in Ag Education, UP ‘65, I never realized until now that PH colleges and universities do not light up fires of learning (upper image), but instead have been operating like factories and producing straight, docile people (lower image).

In my view, the tongues of fire symbolize creative thinking while the meek graduates symbolize having passed through the factory of critical thinking. All PH schools are like that.

Our educators have failed! Not only in the Philippines but worldwide. We copied the US factory educational system!

PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie has announced that the Department of Agriculture, DA, through its agency the Agricultural Credit Policy Council, ACPC, is offering an initial P2 Billion “that young students and entrepreneurs can borrow (from) to start any agriculture, fishery or agribusiness venture” (Facebook post). Manong Willie says, speaking as the ex-officio Chair of the ACPC:

We have to replace aging farmers with younger blood – our Pinoy millennials – who are the future of Philippine agriculture.

Based on Fr Beltran’s sharing above, on minds spewing out tongues of wild fires, today I recommend that the SCUs be re-educated to teach creative thinking, which they have not imagined, and not simply critical thinking, which they are doing now and are too good at!

Seniors, adults or millennials, we all have to think both critically and creatively. Critical thinking is hierarchical, sequential, chronological like that; creative thinking is always a leap of faith, but it is necessary.

For instance for rice, I point to the System of Rice Intensification, SRI, created by a non–farmer priest, Fr Henri de Laulanie when he was assigned in Madagascar^[1].

The SRI techniques in sowing, transplanting and caring for the rice plants are based on critical thinking – they follow the science of crop growth. But the whole package of SRI was in the beginning only a creative thought, a leap of faith of this Jesuit, as Madagascar is one of the least developed countries in the world^[2]– what could a laggard country contribute to modern agriculture?

Ah but, from what I know, SRI has been proven to be not only technically feasible, economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially acceptable. I have myself written about it; try my 28 April 2019 essay, “Since Male Farmers Are Hardheaded, Let's Cultivate The Female^[3]!”

For youth entrepreneurs for the new PH Agriculture, I am thinking of the State Colleges & Universities, SCUs, scattered all over the country revising their curriculums to additionally teach the fires of learning – same subjects but more creative thinking and less critical thinking designed in. Like 90% creativity and 10% criticality, especially for young students who want to become entrepreneurs. With additional funding from the DA.

I am already volunteering to be part of the SCUs’ journey of creativity!@517

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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Laulanie

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

[3]https://iparadigmshifts.blogspot.com/2019/04/since-male-farmers-are-hardheaded-let.html

Thinking P2B, Youth Agripreneurs, Schools And The Metaphor Of The Factory – SCUs For The New PH Agriculture!

Personally, I do not know Fr Benigno P Beltran, SVD, but thank you, Father, for your Facebook post, about the fires of learning, for teaching this teacher!

A very wide reader, BS Agriculture graduate major in Ag Education, UP ‘65, I never realized until now that PH colleges and universities do not light up fires of learning (upper image), but instead have been operating like factories and producing straight, docile people (lower image).

In my view, the tongues of fire symbolize creative thinking while the meek graduates symbolize having passed through the factory of critical thinking. All PH schools are like that.

Our educators have failed! Not only in the Philippines but worldwide. We copied the US factory educational system!

PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie has announced that the Department of Agriculture, DA, through its agency the Agricultural Credit Policy Council, ACPC, is offering an initial P2 Billion “that young students and entrepreneurs can borrow (from) to start any agriculture, fishery or agribusiness venture” (Facebook post). Manong Willie says, speaking as the ex-officio Chair of the ACPC:

We have to replace aging farmers with younger blood – our Pinoy millennials – who are the future of Philippine agriculture.

Based on Fr Beltran’s sharing above, on minds spewing out tongues of wild fires, today I recommend that the SCUs be re-educated to teach creative thinking, which they have not imagined, and not simply critical thinking, which they are doing now and are too good at!

Seniors, adults or millennials, we all have to think both critically and creatively. Critical thinking is hierarchical, sequential, chronological like that; creative thinking is always a leap of faith, but it is necessary.

For instance for rice, I point to the System of Rice Intensification, SRI, created by a non–farmer priest, Fr Henri de Laulanie when he was assigned in Madagascar^[1].

The SRI techniques in sowing, transplanting and caring for the rice plants are based on critical thinking – they follow the science of crop growth. But the whole package of SRI was in the beginning only a creative thought, a leap of faith of this Jesuit, as Madagascar is one of the least developed countries in the world^[2]– what could a laggard country contribute to modern agriculture?

Ah but, from what I know, SRI has been proven to be not only technically feasible, economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially acceptable. I have myself written about it; try my 28 April 2019 essay, “Since Male Farmers Are Hardheaded, Let's Cultivate The Female^[3]!”

For youth entrepreneurs for the new PH Agriculture, I am thinking of the State Colleges & Universities, SCUs, scattered all over the country revising their curriculums to additionally teach the fires of learning – same subjects but more creative thinking and less critical thinking designed in. Like 90% creativity and 10% criticality, especially for young students who want to become entrepreneurs. With additional funding from the DA.

I am already volunteering to be part of the SCUs’ journey of creativity!@517

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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Laulanie

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

[3]https://iparadigmshifts.blogspot.com/2019/04/since-male-farmers-are-hardheaded-let.html

Smarter Than You, Some Kids Or Some Farmers Are – It Doesn't Matter! The Duty Of A Journalist

Being smarter at school or being smarter at farming is not what life is all about. 

As the image says, if you are a schooler, "Be the kid who can get along" with the other kids in school, and "Be the kid who is happy for others."

And I say, "If you are a farmer, be the guy who can get along with the other farmers – and be happy to know and show how they too can be happy, that is to say, not simply to be financially successful with a crop but to rise from poverty and stay up there – and to show how other farmers can do the same!"

Importantly, aggie journalists should write for the non-smart farmers!

Unfortunately, with their stories, most journalists write only about smart farmers, as if to say that all farmers should be as smart.

Anyway: Smart is not smart enough!

Here is Ian Ocampo Flora's 02 January 2020 SunStar Pampanga article, "Lowly Sweet Potato Gets Boost As Next Big Crop[1]:"

Remember the classic retort when somebody tells you to "go home and plant camote (sweet potato)"? Well it's high time that you... give this root crop another look. ¶ Because the truth is, sweet potato has a growing demand in the Philippine domestic market for its vital food and industrial uses. (chips image from Healthline[2])

Not retortbut insult. Usually, the teacher says that after a pupil keeps "exposing" his lack of knowledge. Why camote? It is believed that even a brainless one can grow sweet potato.

No! You need brains to be a farmer and rise from poverty and stay up there! That is what our aggie journalists are not writing for.

Mr Flora says the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development, PCAARRD, has allotted a P25 million budget to "improve quality and production" of sweet potato. That is good – but not good enough! You also need R&D on how the improved camote products will result in farmers being liberated from poverty according to their talents and toils – not making the rich merchants richer still!

Yes, "Sweet potato has industrial uses such as a raw material for the production of gluten-free flour and for animal as well as aqua feed." No, market is notthe problem. The big problem of PH farmers right now is the lack of business-mindedness. They do not think in terms of costs and returns – and so they remain poor.

The smarter journalist would take note of that! One robin doesn't mean a summer; one big crop doesn't catapult a poor farmer from poverty to prosperity.

Merchants dictate prices. Pagdating sa bentahan, ang nagtanim ng kamote ang siyang nangangamote! (When it comes to marketing, it is the camote planter himself who is doing poorly!)

It is the merchants who are smarter than everyone of us, especially the farmers! What to do? It is the duty of journalists to find out if they really want to serve the people!@517

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[1] https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1838334?fbclid=IwAR08eNfUA-Z5M5I3f_2MjMZxQa7JZi9_Enr4uhE2cGJ3OOExWXmbmbhU4gI

[2] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/ube-purple-yam

My Lenovo ThinkPad Laptop And The Importance Of Being Earnest

You are looking at my photograph of my own 14-inch Lenovo ThinkPad touchscreen laptop, taken 1532 hours Wednesday,  25 April 2018, 21 months ago. The photograph is hazy, reflecting the reality now. I'm missing it this minute because it crashed the other day – meaning Windows 10 won't open and Microsoft Office won't open anymore. So, I brought it to the computer shop yesterday to reformat it with new copies of expensive Windows 10 and Microsoft Office. No substitute for the best. The technician said he also had to check the hard disk; will text.

So now I'm using a very old & slow Lenovo notebook, running on Windows 7 (not 8). This Lenovo netbook is what I graduated from when I bought my Lenovo ThinkPad in 13 September 2013, my early birthday gift to myself. That was P33K, a king's ransom in these parts, but I could afford it because I had a handsome dollars professional fee from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT. I was then an international consulting writer for ICRISAT; Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie was then Director General of that institute based in India.

Yes, while I'm having some difficulty with this tiny Lenovo, I have always been enjoying writing for Manong Willie and his innovative ideas – he is an extraordinary science manager, being a Servant Leader and an inspirational achiever. When he became Secretary of Agriculture in August 2019, he was ready with his "Eight Paradigms" for the "New Thinking For Agriculture," and I came up happily with a book titled In Paradigms Lost, In Paradigms Regained to support it (email me for a free ecopy: frankahilario@gmail.com).

I love playing with words, just like my favorite wit Oscar Wilde does. He is the author of the play whose first part of the title I used above: "The Importance Of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy For Serious People[1]." This play is "a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations." I am always earnest but I don't maintain a fictitious personae. I write in the personal pronoun because I do not wish "to escape burdensome social obligations" – what I write is what I believe in.

Yes, I believe in the new PH Agriculture being espoused by Manong Willie. If you will note, the blog where you are reading this now borrows from Manong Willie's "Eight Paradigms" and is called iParadigms Shifts – to signify that we all need to change our perspectives, shirk old PH Agriculture and shift to the new. (Metaphor: While I'm using this old Lenovo, I am waiting for funds to buy a new one.)

In the above image, in the middle, someone is like "going into the unknown" – actually he's walking into a smoke-filled side street.  I think this image more or less portrays the state of PH Agriculture right now – we know what we want, but we have to be ready to boldly tackle the unknowns.

You can be sure I'm with you all the way!@517

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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Importance_of_Being_Earnest

PH Agriculture Is 10 Years Behind In Food Security & Diversification – Using ICRISAT As Guide

In 2009, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, called the attention of the whole world by highlighting its international work on food security and diversification. (image above part of the cover of the annual report, 60 pages 8.5” x 11” trim size) 

And why, you ask, am I pointing out an international center thousands of kilometers away? For the not-so-simple reason that the Director General of ICRISAT at that time is now the PH Secretary of Agriculture, none other than William Dar/Manong Willie. He was ICRISAT DG for 15 years, from January 2000 to December 2014, and being Team Captain, he brought ICRISAT from dead last to first among the 15 international research centers in agriculture that belong to the CGIAR Group, including IRRI. That took not only courage but faith in God, in the human species, strength in teamwork – and the great appeal of Vision.

The ICRISAT Vision was simple and yet profound:
Science with a human face.

Not, mind you, Science with a human farce – people using science pretending to serve the people while serving their own selfish interests first and foremost. “Food security and diversification in the drylands” – says the title of the report. Food security is for villages, not simply farmers or families; diversification must be in crops, in the environment, even as it is in peoples. If crop diversification is good for india which has 550 tribes[1]; the Philippines has 170 languages and therefore, that many tribes, and therefore that many diversities in tongues and traits – which we must all satisfy if we are to grow as a strong country.

Food security – notfood sufficiency – is the herculean goal of the new PH under Manong Willie. We do not have to produce every bite of food we need; we just have to produce what we do best so that we can afford to buy what we need and do not produce.

ICRISAT’s mission, according to the Annual Report, is “To reduce poverty, enhance food and nutritional security, and protect the environment of the semi-arid tropics by empowering the poor through partnership-based science with a human face.”

Learning from ICRISAT, in agriculture, to reduce poverty, to reduce food insufficiency, to reduce nutritional insecurity, to reduce environmental degradation – we must empower the poor farmers to help them help themselves. And how do we do that? Via partnerships in science and technology. Public, private, philantrophic, peasant partnerships – the peasants must be doers for their own good, not just seekers of pity and denanders of patronage.

Nigel Poole, Chair of the ICRISAT Board, says in his message, “I am very proud of the fact that ICRISAT has pursued strategic partnerships to both develop agricultural solutions and to disseminate its knowledge and findings.” Uniquely and importantly, he urges other research bodies: “Research institutes must always be looking for ways of doing things better.”

Now outside ICRISAT, former DG Manong Willie I am sure will always be looking for ways of doing things better for PH Agriculture!@517

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[1] https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/schedule-tribes-in-india-1448689214-1

Revolution Or Reformation? Jose Rizal As The Messiah We Don’t Know

Past the birth of The Christian Messiah, Jesus Christ, 25 December. Past the death of The Messiah of the Philippines – Jose Rizal, 30 December. To me, the message of the Messiah stays on. Except that we Filipinos have been arguing against Redemption since the 1890s.

A girl friend of long ago just asked me for a copy of my book (half of the cover is the red image above):indios bravos! Jose Rizal As Messiah Of The Redemption. She lives in Australia, although she is not complaining about the bush fires that apparently have engulfed all of Australia – or overwhelmed many of those who love Australia, whichever comes first.Conflagrations are never welcome and are difficult to contain.

No to Conflagration, yes to Configuration!

Yes, for years I have been thinking of a quite different Jose Rizal, National Hero of the Philippines. In 4 words, Rizal was “the first Filipino intellectual” (page 10 of my book).

I will now liken the Bush Fires of Australia to the injustices brought about by the Spanish conquerors on my people in the Philippines, except that those bush fires exhausted themselves by exhausting the combustible materials – like the Filipino revolutionaries wanting to control or conquer the Spaniards to stop their abuses of power over us natives and uneducated.

Rizal was the pacifist nobody knew, or understood. He opposed Andres Bonifacio’s Katipunan’s armed Revolution because he knew it would be bloody. And it was very. In fact, the Revolution consumed its own Father, Bonifacio. It was rivalry over power, and the upper class led by Emilio Aguinaldo won over the middle class. In any case, Aguinaldo or Bonifacio, I would not have joined.

I would have subscribed to what Rizal was preaching – Education. That would be what I have just called Configuration. If you want smooth change, but change nevertheless, you do not resort to fire to force the will of the people to be malleable – you resort to Configuration, to convince the mind to change the dominant colors of its views from Red to Yellow to White – that is to say, from Passion to Peace.

After all is said and done, of course I love most my own translation of the national hero’s valedictory poem written in Spanish and titled “Adios, Patria Adorada” – my July 2005 English translation is titled “Adios, Beloved Patria.”Adios is now of course an English word, and I wanted Patria because it is the name of a woman and my motherland Pilipinas is of course a female.

When I compared my English translation with those of others, from Charles Derbyshire’s “Farewell Dear Fatherland” (1911) to Frank Laubach’s “Fare Thee Well, Motherland I Adore” (1936) to Nick Joaquin’s “Land That I Love – Farewell!” (1941), to Encarnacion Alzona & Isidro Escare Abeto’s “Farewell, My Adored Land” (1961), I see that the most beloved translation of all, that of Derbyshire, does notfollow the a-b-a-a-b rhyme by the last word. Same with our beloved national writer Nick Joaquin.I know why – it is not easy to translate Rizal!@517