It’s Time PhilRice Grow More Than Rice, Including Grow Farmer-Friendly Knowledge

Am very glad to note that PhilRice won the 2019 PH Government Best Practice Focus Awardfrom the Development Academy of the Philippines, DAP[1]. According to Donna Cris Corpuz, the DAP award was for PhilRice’s “client-centric service, specifically serving the country’s rice farmers” (above main image appears with her story). Miss Donna explains:

The scoring was based on the best practice focus areas, which include social and environmental responsibility, strategic planning and deployment, customer and citizen focus, and strategic performance management.

That means PhilRice did an excellent job last year in bringing science to the farmers who texted because they wanted to know more about rice.

Now, that Focus Award looks at the performance of PhilRice bringing the recommendations of experts to farmers on their concerns – but does not look at the farmers’ obtaining Masaganang Ani at Mataas na Kita (Bounteous Harvest & Bountiful Income, my translation), the dream of PH Agriculture under Secretary William Dar/Manong Willie.

So: PhilRice service may be good, but farmer’s performance may be poor – and that should be the main concern of PhilRice!

Miss Donna mentions that this PhilRice digital platform is an offshoot of the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture, OpAPA – which means the OpAPA is dead. And I cannot accept that.

You see, I was a consultant of PhilRice in 2003, the first year of OpAPA, a digital knowledge program proposed by then Director General William Dar of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, based in India. With Manong Willie now PH Secretary of Agriculture, I do believe OpAPA should not simply be washed away by a flood of ignorance.

I believed so much in the “open academy” concept of OpAPA that I singlehandedly brainchilded a workbook titled The Geography Of Knowledge, 198 pages, which I submitted to the incumbent PhilRice Executive Director on 28 December 2003. Sorry, nothing came out of my book and my proposed intellectual content design for OpAPA, but I still believe that my geography of knowledge is necessary for the luxuriant growth of PH Agriculture today.

This time, let me refer to it simply as Digital Rice. Here are some ideas (superimposed image from Alamy[2]):

Options: You should not assume it is only rice that PhilRice should be concerned with. Never mind that IRRI, which is the Mother of PhilRice, is fixated on rice monoculture – why cannot PhilRice explore rice-based farming systems with other crops such as corn and beans?

Language: IRRI has a knowledge bank, extensive – but everything is for someone who knows technical terms associated with the growing of rice, from heredity (in relation to potential yield), to parent shoot (in relation to maximum tillering capacity that actually determines the yield), to ratooning(that increases yield as well as income) – now, nobody talks about ratooning rice as an option: Why not?

Demos & Trainings: Certainly, Digital Rice can teach anyone anywhere anything he wants to know, even show convincingly the physical meaning of Masaganang Ani along with Mataas na Kita.

We need Digital Rice!@517

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[1]https://www.philrice.gov.ph/philrice-text-center-recognized-as-govt-best-practice/?fbclid=IwAR1rVwbSOJarFcOB2iZUoU766PHN1jyXh5RKhkxWQI6JEWnJOhztT-5xcvg

^[2]https://www.alamy.com/rice-icons-set-flat-set-of-rice-vector-icons-for-web-design-image236820766.html

Youth – For New PH Agriculture, How SCUs Can Teach Creative Thinking For Entrepreneurship

PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie is pinning hopes on the luxuriant regrowth of Agriculture with the active participation of both the Public and Private Sectors. He is also pinning bright hopes on Youth Entrepreneurship – which needs creative thinking. 

The problem is: We are educating the youth halfway about thinking!

Schools, Colleges & Universities, SCUs, watch out!

Romy Quiñones shares on Facebook Bloom’s Taxonomy (top image) – aye, there’s the rub! I cut off the bottom that says, “249 Bloom’s Taxonomy Verbs For Critical Thinking.” My God, if you teach 249 verbs to the K-12’s, when will they finish their schooling?!

Look at these:

249 verbs for Critical Thinking,
000 verbs for Creative Thinking!

From this teacher, for today’s lesson for educators, I gathered 2 artistic expressions of the same subject from the Internet (the 2 superimposed images above) – never mind from whom I got because I am notgoing to give them credit; instead, I am going to give them a piece of my mind!

Creative thinking: I am a Filipino self-taught science writer. If you are not creative in writing about science, you cannot compete against the bad news.

Critical thinking: I am also an academically trained secondary teacher, with Civil Service eligibility, Professional Level, in the Philippines.

Above, I am establishing credentials, God-given and man-made, to begin and finish this one.

Patricia Armstrong says about Bloom’s Taxonom:y[1]:

Familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy… (the framework) consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as “skills and abilities,” with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

Bloom’s Taxonomy: Hierarchical, from the ground up – That is all critical thinking, which is only half-thinking!

Above, those 2 superimposed images. Left image: Skills and abilities cannot be hierarchical. And they cannot overlap and contradict each other. Right image: Skills and abilities are what the flower suggests: composite parts of one bloom.

From the ground up, Ms Patricia says, you first Evaluate, then Synthesize, then Analyze, then Apply, then Comprehend.

That is not logical thinking at all! That is confused thinking!

Clearly thinking, the Peak Performance Center, PPC, says[2]:

Creative thinking is a way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective to conceive of something new or original. ¶ Critical thinking is the logical, sequential disciplined process of rationalizing, analyzing, evaluating, and interpreting information to make informed judgments and/or decisions.

As a teacher and the world’s most creative writer online who supports Manong Willie’s “New Thinking for Agriculture,” what can I do to help educate young students in creative thinking? Upon their invitation, to start, I could visit the major SCUs such as Benguet State University, Bicol State University, Central Luzon State University, and UP Los Baños, to hold sessions in creative thinking in hard-core subjects or areas like animal husbandry, entomology, plant breeding, and veterinary medicine. Yes – you will be surprised!

Educators here and abroad, you need some education yourselves!@517

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[1]https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/

[2]http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/thinking/critical-thinking/critical-thinking-vs-creative-thinking/

The Problem With PowerPoint Is You!

Speakers, lecturers, professors, proselytizers, marketers, whoever you are, pay careful attention to your use of PowerPoint – otherwise, it’s useless!

Here comes Inc.comContributing Editor Geoffrey James saying, “PowerPoint Makes Us Stupid. Here Are 3 Smarter Alternatives” (03 February 2020, Inc[1]). My quick reply to that is in these 17 words:

No, Mr James, it is not your PowerPointpresentation that makes you look stupid – it is you!

Mr James, just look at the image above being presented to grab the attention of the reader – it does notgrab anyone. Undramatic, boring. But I’m creative, so it gives me another idea – a microphone does not grab the audience; it is the speaker who does! Or does not!

More than 4 years ago, 07 October 2015, I wrote against those against this app: “PowerPoint: Blaming The Program, Not The Pro[2].” I was responding to Andrew Smith of The Guardian complaining "How PowerPoint Is Killing Critical Thought." (23 September 2015, theguardian.com). Mr Smith was killing critical thought! (Why are the American and British journalists complaining?!)

Mr James, it is not the app killing critical thinking – it is the user of the app!

You enumerate 3 different “techniques that work better than PowerPoint” for 3 different meetings, and I quote:

1. If you need to discuss and decide, use a briefing document.
2. If you must instruct or train, create interactive experiences.
3. If you want to entertain or inspire, give a speech.

Mr James, if you bothered yourself at all, you can use PowerPoint to create your briefing document – and open people’s eyes in a meeting. And you can use PowerPoint to create interactive experiences. And you can use PowerPoint to entertain and/or inspire!

If the PowerPoint presentation fails, it is the thinker who has failed; it is the tinkerer who has not done enough tinkering with his presentation.

Yes, Mr James, I have not seen a PowerPoint presentation that grabs the audience, and I have been in and out of the academe and conferences in the last 20 years.

My PowerPoint advice is, Mr James, only 1 sentence made up of only 7 words:

Get your damn message out at once!

Immediately, right away, right on the first slide – then you can expect your audience to pay attention to you throughout your presentation, no matter how long. Guaranteed.

Otherwise, I repeat:

No, Mr James, it is not your PowerPointpresentation that makes you look stupid – it is you!

You quote one of my idols: “As Steve Jobs once said, 'People who know what they are talking about don't need PowerPoint.'” Geniuses can be wrong too!

I quote Mr Jobs again: “People who know what they are talking about don't need PowerPoint.” Mr James, the lesson there is that, in the first place, you should know what you’re talking about. This genius is telling you, Mr James, immediately with PowerPoint:

Get your main message out right away!

The literal meaning of “PowerPoint” is to make a point with power – and that is what all users have failed all these years.@517

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[1]https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/sick-of-powerpoint-heres-what-to-use-instead.html?cid=sf01002&fbclid=IwAR0MurqO5SrVzoJuirXcnMTuRxWiZKiZjh8ucqdPT5eiWRhYjtbliesp24o

[2]https://frankahilario.blogspot.com/2015/10/powerpoint-blaming-program-not-pro.html

Where In The Philippines Is Secretary Of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie?

So, can you tell me where the above picture was taken? (See note on January 31 below.)

I was laughing to myself while I was reading about peripatetic William Dar/Manong Willie as PH Secretary of Agriculture – you cannot guess where he is at any given day! The busiest Secretary I have ever known about in the last 20 years, via the Internet, and I am a Facebook hound.

January 24, Pampanga– At the campus of Pampanga State Agriculture University, PSAU, Manong Willie opens the Animal Disease Diagnostic Research Facility. This setup supports the DA’s campaign for food security, safety and sustainability. He is the keynote speaker during the 5th University Anniversary of PSAU in Magalang town. He says the DA will soon launch an Agri-Business Incubation Program to encourage individuals, especially the youth, to engage in agriculture and to benefit farmers and fishers. “This is not a loan but a grant to be given to public and private institutions providing agri-business programs. These institutions will serve as mentors who will assist interested individuals or groups to scale up their farming activities and agri-business endeavors.” DA has allotted P500 million for the program while Congress allocated an additional P8 million for it. He also says, “Even before I became the Agriculture Secretary, I (was) already advocating programs because I want the millennials to go back to farming and agricultural business.”

January 24, still in Pampanga– Still at PSAU, Manong Willie leads the launching of two loan programs totaling P2 billion in funds to encourage young Filipinos to engage in farming. One is the Kapital Access for Young Agripreneurs, the other Agri-Negosyo loan program for young Filipinos. The funds are managed by the Agricultural Credit Policy Council, which is under the DA.

January 26, Manila– At the Baseco Port Area, “DA to level up support for Manila Bay rehab, focus on fishery,” Manong Willie says.

January 28, Dumaguete City – He awards P350 million in assistance to 2 provinces of Central Visayas. Signs each with Negros Oriental State University and Siquijor State College a Memorandum of Agreement for “TREEwardship Program,” part of the National Greening Program. The 2 state academic institutions each will receive P3 million for the massive seedling production program in Central Visayas, plus P7 million each for agri-entrepreneurship.

January 28, Bohol– He turns over P380 million worth of agriculture and fishery programs and projects to the province of Bohol during the 20th Ubi Festival. These include awarding of various agri-machineries, inputs (including inbred seeds), and projects; and training and extension under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund. P40 million is committed for fisheries projects. A Land Suitability Map for coffee and cacao is turned over to Bohol.

January 31, Pagadian City – He launches the Rice Farmers Financial Assistance Program in this city in Zamboanga, where 1,200 farmers each receives P5,000 cash assistance through cash cards distributed by Land Bank.

Now then, do you still have doubts about the compassion, competence and composure of this Secretary of Agriculture at these turbulent times?

Science with a human touch! @517

Inclusive Development Journalism Proposed, As PH Journalism Needs Improvement! – Frank H

2020. We need a clear vision of today for tomorrow, at least for the next 10 years.

The above image from Journalism Matters[1]says, “Celebrating the vital role journalism plays in society.” The website was created May 2019 by the News Media Association of London, designed by Senior – age doesn’t matter, but media does!

“Media,” says Siva Sivani Institute of Management, “become food to strengthen or weaken society[2].”

Ah, but this time, in the universe of Philippine media, age matters, and I mind it.

This essay you are reading now was triggered by 2 articles I have just read about a PH  institution (I will not name it) written by 2 journalists, female & male (I will not name them either): (1) the news similarly insinuating that the PH Department of Agriculture, DA, under Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie, was NOT advocating entrepreneurship, (2) likewise insinuating that Manong Willie needed advice to start advocating such!

My God. Both those journalists did not do their homework. Go Negosyo tells us that almost 2 years ago, long before he became PH Secretary of Agriculture, Manong Willie was already advocating agripreneurship (agriculture + entrepreneurship) for the ASEAN[3]!

It was the similar way those 2 news articles were written – the journalistic slant was in favor of the institutional origin of the story and did not consider the repercussions on the leadership of the DA.

It is old-style, careless journalism, and that is why I am advocating a new one: Inclusive Development Journalism.

I am thinking that old/new journalists must now write their stories in the context of Inclusive Development

In effect, I have been practicing earnestly inclusive development journalism since January 2007, starting as an international consulting writer for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, when Manong Willie was Director General of ICRISAT, based in India. That was when I created the website iCRiSAT Watch (“Lead the flock, serve the people!”). When he retired as DG end of December 2014, I had already blogged 305 essays of at least 1,000 words each. Based in Manila, I enjoyed every minute of that long engagement.

Since then, I have blogged about 6 million words, some 97% of which are long essays of a minimum 1,000 words each. The love of writing has stayed with me because, when I write, I do not write for myself – I write for others in the name of Inclusive Development.

I first learned about inclusive development from ICRISAT’s strategy called Inclusive Market-Oriented Development, IMOD, where the food producers are in effect the merchants themselves, thereby enjoying all the values added along the value chain.

Inclusive development. Inclusive of the poor.

If journalists do not advocate for the welfare of the poor farmers, who will?

If journalists write only because they have to, shame on them!

If they write about science but do not make the common farmer appreciate it, why do they write at all?

If they write so that only their interests matter, who needs them?!@517

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[1]http://journalismmatters.co/

^[2]https://www.ssim.ac.in/blog/role-of-media-in-society/

^[3]http://www.gonegosyo.net/2017/04/24/an-agricultural-take-on-msme-development-with-dr-william-dar/

PH – Inclusive Growth Or Inclusive Development, Zero Extreme Or Zero Poverty?

On Facebook yesterday, Bruce Tolentino shared “The Philippines IG Inclusive Growth Story” that is actually “a student competition on how the Philippines can achieve high-income status with zero extreme poverty by 2040.” 

From the DoF website:

The Philippine Development Forum – Sulong Pilipinas: Hakbang Tungo sa Kaunlaran is an annual consultative conference that brings together different stakeholders from all over the country. By establishing a strong partnership between the government and different sectors – from business and development partners, to the academe, youth organizations, and many others – Sulong seeks to build a truly inclusive economy, and work towards a comfortable life for all Filipinos[1].

Zero Extreme Poverty 20 years from now – Is that a realistic goal? It is. But I don’t like such a realistic goal – I like the unrealistic goal of Zero Poverty! Why because if you Dream Big, you might as well Dream the Universe.

Also: There is something I do not like in the concept of “Inclusive Growth” – I want “Inclusive Development.”

Inclusive Growth is the result of Gross Domestic Product, GDP. In effect, in GDP the poor are largely excluded as beneficiaries of the overall economic growth. Else, we would not have any poor families today!

Inclusive Development is the result of Gross Domestic Happiness, GDH. Differently, in GDH, the poor are both actors and benefactors of themselves via their own labors.

Here is a practical way of describing or presenting inclusive development – I am quoting Director General of ICRISAT based in India and now PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, in his Manila Times column of Friday, 14 May 2018[2]:

Achieving profitability in the rice industry will need collective action among smallholder farmers, meaning they should organize themselves into cooperatives so they can go into block farming to achieve economies of scale… and have bargaining power in the trading of rice.

Via cooperatives, the poor farmers enjoy inclusive development, because their cooperatives are the merchants themselves and share incomes that sustain the lives of the producers and their families.

GDP admits of classic individual merchants as indispensable to the economy, who take care of their own welfare. Of course.

GDH admits of modern institutional merchants as indispensable to the economy, who take care of the welfare of the merchants as well as the food producers. In fact, the merchants are in effect the food producers themselves, working through cooperatives.

So, in this 2020 student competition, via GDP, we are teaching the students to not thinkbeyond the current dispensation, to think only via classical economic thought.

We are encouraging our students to be conformists, not alas, creative members of society!

The contest guidelines, available online[3], comprise 6 pages single-spaced. Too complicated. No cash awards mentioned. Nonetheless, if the first prize is P3 million, 2^nd prize P2 million, and 3^rd prize P1 million – those amounts will matter much to the student groups who will become winners, but not much to poor farmers who have always been the losers from obstacles to opportunities to options to outputs to outcomes!@517

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[1]https://www.dof.gov.ph/index.php/advocacies/sulong-pilipinas/

[2]https://www.manilatimes.net/2018/05/11/business/columnists-business/rice-farming-as-agribusiness/398081/

[3]https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MUQN3F4Phv1o0ApeY-ZfjmpKH8IDYbDZ/view?fbclid=IwAR2mH_ojPVH0ju6nWNuoj2AFR9KTO69aPCJmHWM9oN7lwR8ap3CIoZ5SlL4

AgriText – How UP Los Baños Can Lead SCUs To Promote Agriculture In The Fields

Tuesday, 28 January, I am looking at my photograph (superimposed) taken on the 14^th of February 2019, with the Oblation statue at UP Los Baños as if asking in love:

Oblation: “What am I supposed to do – Instruction? Research? Extension? I have only 2 Arms!”

Frank H: “What about the Head?”

UP Los Baños should be the Header/Leader among schools, colleges & universities, SCUs, in Extension but, right now, it’s stuck on the pedestal of Trilogy of Functions – without being organized to carry out such functions dependently and independently. Declaring one’s love is not the same as showing it!

In 1959 when I was freshman for my BSA major in Ag Edu at the University of the Philippines’ College of Agriculture, UPCA, now UP Los Baños, UPCA was brandishing as weapon its trilogy of functions; today, everyone has forgotten the 3^rd function. 

Thursday, 30 January.The main photograph above, from the UPLB website[1], shows former UPLB Chancellor and former UP System President Emil Q Javier speaking as the guest of honor at the 29 January celebration of 22 years of the UPLB College of Public Affairs & Development, CPAf, at its headquarters[2]. CPAf Dean Rolando T Bello calls him the “Father of CPAf” as Jayson E Gloria reports, “NS Javier Reiterates CPAf’s ‘Raison D'être:”

National Scientist Javier reminded the CPAf constituents of their continuing responsibility and capability to assist the local government units (LGUs) in the delivery of basic services and to help empower farmers and beneficiaries of agrarian reform, the very reasons why CPAf was created during his term as UP President (1993-1999).

CPAf was founded in 1998, but even as a wide reader, I have not come across CPAf actively (a) collaborating with any of the LGUs in the country, not even in Laguna, where it is based, and/or (b) helping empower farmers and beneficiaries of agrarian reform. That is why I proposed this 30 January, in my essay “UPLB CPAf – What’s Rural Development Doing In A Place Like This?[3]” that CPAf involve itself with SCUs in the country, I viewing:

“CPAf in a national community education program in collaboration with the SCUs and with financing and management by the DA.”

On his part, Mr Javier focused on the LGUs:

There is a recurring need for human resource development in the LGUs so that (they) can deliver the services to the people. And we in the university can play that catalytic role.

On my part, as an educator and a communicator, I see UP Los Baños leading the SCUs in creating a national knowledge bank on agriculture, deposits of research of the SCUs themselves. I’ll call it here AgriText – “Text mo lang!” (Just text!) – for science that is accessible, in popular language, Internet-based, helping the DA in the field keep their science constantly up-to-date. Thus will the SCUs assist technicians in delivering knowledge directly to the people.

If so, I’m imagining UP Oblation saying, “I’m offering all the science that I know to my people!@517

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[1]https://uplb.edu.ph/all-news/ns-javier-reiterates-cpafs-raison-detre/

[2]https://uplb.edu.ph/all-news/ns-javier-reiterates-cpafs-raison-detre/

[3]https://ithewizardofos.blogspot.com/2020/01/uplb-cpaf-whats-rural-development-doing.html