We The People, The GOATS (Greatest Of All Tribes) – If We Can Knock Out Climate Change In A Thousand Days! Today, The Countdown Begins

This brown Filipino’s idol, black American boxing legend Muhammad Ali, was the world’s boxing Greatest Of All Time (GOAT). He believed, “I am the greatest!” and he was – he believed in himself. He thrived. How about us, people of the world – do we believe in ourselves enough that we can fight the greatest fight of all and declare ourselves The Greatest Of All Tribes (The GOATs) battling Climate Change? Above, Ali is saying, “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.” Today, I am starting the countdown to “A Thousand Days To The GOATs,” because that is what I believe that is all the time we have to save ourselves from the sins of our fathers and brothers as well as our own – generating greenhouse gases (GHGs) that generate climate change! No excuses this time.

I am an agriculturist – BSA major in Ag Edu 1965, UP Los Baños; Civil Service Professional 1964; I am also a self-taught writer, editor, desktop publisher, and blogger – in the last 15 years, I have been feeling it was my duty to help proselytize to defeat Climate Change via a Primate Change in agriculture, from the practice of Chemical Agriculture (CA) to Regenerative Agriculture (RA), via which we avoid all those GHGs that chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides generate.

“Don’t count the days,” Muhammad Ali advised his fans. “Make the days count.” Borrowing from the GOAT, today is Day 0001 that begins our bounden duty to rebuild our farms and rebuild the lives of our farmers – that is to say, solve Farmer Poverty and simultaneously resolve Climate Change.

We must apply regenerative agriculture. What are the benefits of regenerative agriculture? They are what I call The Healthy 5s:

1.      Healthy soil. Naturally, when you apply organic matter in whatever form – fertilizer, mulch, trash, green manure – the soil becomes naturally richer from the decaying matter. Death is the origin of health!

2.      Healthy crops. Naturally, the healthy soil grows healthy crops as Mother Nature takes care of its balance of lives, harmful and beneficial.

3.      Healthy harvests. Naturally, the healthy crops bring out high harvests all the time – because the plants are healthy, they can fight pests and diseases on their own.

4.      Healthy consumers. Naturally, food buyers will love your farm produce once they learn that they are grown on soil enriched with organic matter. Their bodies will make them feel better soon enough.

5.      Healthy farmers. Naturally, with low costs with high returns, farming becomes lucrative – solving Farmer Poverty.

Not only that. Since healthy farming applies neither chemical fertilizers nor chemical pesticides, there are zero pesticide residues in any food and zero GHGs in farms – thereby, resolving climate change!

Like Muhammad Ali, those of us who know better should speak out for the farmers and the environment. Like Ali, let it be said that “We sought balance in our daily lives just as much as we sought balance in the world.”

Muhammad Ali, you are the greatest!@517

 

PH Industry Commits To Fighting Climate Change – What About PH Agriculture? Asking As A Friend!

In the manner of the boy David vs the giant Goliath, the Green Convergence has been convened to help the Philippines “achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”  That’s what I call “Primate Change” vs “Climate Change.” So far, Goliath is winning!

ANN says, “Lopez-Led First Balfour, Vendors Take Steps Vs Climate Change” (22 Dec 2022, ABS-CBN News, news.abs-cbn.com).  

The Lopez-led engineering and construction firm First Balfour Inc and its vendors have agreed to explore measures to fight climate change, the company said. First Balfour's vendors in its supply chain bared the plan during their forum earlier this month, the company said in a statement.

"Collaboration with the vendors and subcontractors, government, communities, and even with competitors is most important" when dealing with climate change, First Balfour Strategic Business Head Vicente de Lima II said. First Balfour said it also agreed to join a Philippine initiative called "Ako Ang Bukas Movement" (AAB) which the Green Convergence convened to help the country achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Now then, AAB is our local initiative to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. C emissions is the industry’s Goliath.

But via my wide digital reading, I know of a much bigger Goliath, and I have known him since 2007, the year Ex-US Vice President Al Gore and the IPCC co-won the Nobel Peace Prize. His complete name is Chemical Agriculture (CA). The greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) of CA are: nitrates, nitrous oxide, methane. Nitrous oxide is the deadliest of the GHGs that we humans produce.

Which all points to our current practice of Agriculture as the very source of energy that Climate Changeis using to annihilate all of us primates!

Our farmers are our unknown enemies. Consciously, they apply to their crops chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides because they want to defeat soil nutrient deficiency and attacks of pests – unconsciously, they are at the same time generating all those GHGs. So, our farmers are our unknown creators of this huge, ephemeral Goliath (eGoliath)!

Everywhere, our chemical farmers produce as much as 37% of the global GHGs (Krista Charles (13 Sept 2022, “Food Production Emissions Make Up More Than A Third Of Global Total,” New Scientist, newscientist.com).

Now then, we can immediately defeat this eGoliath if we completely, 100% stop chemical agriculture and apply 100% regenerative agriculture (RA). Immediately, we will have zero (0%) GHGs!
(“How Regenerative” from youtube.com)

A popular practice of RA is the application of organic methods (OM) on the soil to enrich it – organic fertilizer, trash mulch… These materials are not foreign to Filipinos, except that only a few use them. In those 13 million ha of farms (2020, Statista, statista.com) right now generating GHGs all over this archipelago – with OM, instantly zero GHGs!

Additionally: Let us not forget that when farmers apply 100% OM to their agriculture, they reduce their total costs of farming by at least 50% and therefore increase their net returns by at least 50% – with organic methods, we solve Farmer P overty and resolve Climate Change!@517 

 

Manual Or Mental Work, Better Have A System Of Doing More By Doing Less!

Above, Facebook sharing by Joy Duldulao: “Mariknak ti bannog.  First week pay laeng, kasla one month metten.” Translation from Ilocano: “I feel the tiredness. It’s just first week, but it feels like it’s been one month.” Personally, I don’t know Joy (male, yes), also an Ilocano. I don’t know how old he is, but I know I am 82 (Sept 17). I am a nonstop writer from home (WFH) digital author, editor, and desktop publisher. This New Year, he says he is getting tired easily whatever he is doing, farming and/or gardening. I also get tired writing & editing, rewriting & re-editing so many times, but I never get mentally drained because I’m dedicating it all to the Filipino people, especially the farmers & their leaders.

(“Tired” from vecteezy.com)

And why am I writing about a cultivator getting tired? First, note my comment to Joy’s Facebook sharing:

My recommendation: Farming without work. Google for “Ruth Stout”

I don’t know him personally, but being tireless Facebook sharers both, I know Joy is with PhilRice Isabela. Administrator, agriculturist and gardener, whatever. He needs Ruth Stout.

Ruth Stout is/was the American lady who wrote the book “Gardening Without Work” first published in 1961. I am an agriculturist; I had just graduated from UP Los Baños in1965 when, being a wide reader, I discovered Ms Ruth’s book in the open shelves of the library of UPLB. I feel in love with it because she was mulching to grow her food and not using chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Mulching is as natural as can be – you garden with mulch, grow healthy crops.

Using natural materials, even if you feel tired gardening, you will be happy!

Borrowing from Ruth Stout now, let me call all the relentless blogging I have been doing since 2000 “Writing Without Work.” I have been cultivating my manual (typewriter) creativity since 1975, my digital creativity since 1985. I have since dedicated my writing to the Filipino farmers.

I am a son of Ilocano farmer Dionisio who I don’t remember did complain about how much or how less farming rewarded farmers. He could afford it, so he was into chemical agriculture (CA). Not knowing any better then, I was happily spraying those weeds with 2,4-D, even soaking their leaves wet! (When I came across Ruth Stout in 1965, I banned CA from my vocabulary.)

How about “Farming Without Work,” Joy? If you want to lessen your manual farming, use your head!

PhilRice has 7 branch stations from Ilocos Norte in Luzon to Cotabato in Mindanao – PhilRice Batac, PhilRice Isabela, PhilRice Los Baños, PhilRice Bicol, PhilRice Negros,  PhilRice Agusan, PhilRice Midsayap – but none of them has reported doing research on reducing manual labor in rice farming.

Why not PhilRice researching on System of Rice Intensification (SRI) with organic methods? Asking for a friend! With organic, you decrease your costs much & remove your health hazards – and increase your returns much!

I have my own system of farming without work, but I will skip that this time.@517 

 

“From Heat to Hate – They Have The Hurt But Not The Heart

Street protests by Filipinos against poverty is at least 100 years old. In “Appendix: A History Of The Philippine Political Protest” (officialgazette.gov.ph), the very first sentence reads: “Filipinos have been taking to the streets in protest for more than a century. Most of the first street rallies were conducted by laborers and peasants.”

That anonymously-written PH source of history goes on to say:

Street protests began to gain popularity as a method of expressing public discontent in the 1920s due to poverty in the provinces and cities. According to David Sturvenant, the Filipinization of the government did little to change the values of the landed elite. The “paradoxical character of American policy” was enlightened on paper, but insufficient in practice: despite mass education, increased literacy, public health programs, and improvements in transportation, poorly planned economic policies undid them.

The Americans ruled the Philippine islands from the 1900s to mid-1990s, politically and educationally. And so my alma mater UP Los Baños was founded in 1908 and instructed by respected American educators in the early decades, but the poverty of Filipino farmers remained. The official source cited above says “poorly planned economic policies undid them,” that is to say, American improvements in the lives of Filipinos did not improve on poverty.

Under American enlightenment, the future of Filipinos remained dark. Now that you mention it, as an alumnus educator of UP Los Baños, I am not surprised at all.

Today, I will dis/credit the American teachers who founded and ran my alma mater – innocently, they brought in chemical agriculture (CA), ah, those chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides that the whole world now knows as generators of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that are major generators of Climate Change.

And so I keep repeating in my blogposts the line that what keeps the Filipino farmers poor is their visible CA generating invisible GHGs. Think! Chemicals are expensive – Rather than chemical agriculture, farmers must practice organic agriculture.

If we help our Filipino farmers cultivate the habits of Organic Agriculture and discard their 100-year old habits of Chemical Agriculture, then:

Our farmers’ costs of farming will go down tremendously and their returns will go up much more – they will certainly grow richer. Isn’t that wonderful?!

Necessarily, our farmers will produce healthy foods that more customers would love to buy more, thus enriching their bodies while enriching the farming village starting with the farmers. Isn’t that great?!

Thus, our farmers will stop generating GHGs in their farms – thus, their farming will help stop climate change in the country or reduce it much. How much is that? Think of the millions of hectares of farms in the Philippine islands fighting climate change. Isn’t that fantastic?!

How do you end farmer poverty? Naturally.
How do you end climate change? Naturally.
How do you change Philippine history written by American hands? Using Filipino hands.

Now therefore, should we Filipinos hate the Americans? No, let us use our hearts, not our heads. We should hate the hurt and the heat and, in a loving manner, act naturally!@517

“Does The ADB Think Of ‘Vision & Mission’? Asking For A Country Friend!” – Frank A Hilario

To finance Asian countries in combatting Climate Change, should not the Asian Development Bank (ADB) encourage million-dollar funding proposals that proceed from a Vision and a Mission? Asking for a friend!

Bonar Laureto shares on Facebook the above photo & the link to the message of ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa, which is in the news by ANN, “ADB Plans $14 Billion To Ease Food Crisis, Promote Long-Term Food Security In Asia And The Pacific” (Author Not Named, 30 Sept 2022, ADB SEADS, seads.adb.org). SEADS is Southeast Asia Development Solutions.

How do organizations find “solutions” to “problems”? A non-manager but an indefatigable digital researcher, my answer is: “First they have to find Vision and Mission.”

Now, how important are Vision and Mission? BDC says very clearly (bdc.ca/en):

A vision statement expresses a company’s main goal for the future while a mission statement concisely explains how that goal will be achieved.

So! The ADB might as well think in terms of corporate minds – so that it can consider funding proposals not only more intelligently but more incisively.

I know I'm trying to introduce a foreign matter into the affairs of the ADB, but what is more foreign than Climate Change, and it has become a common enemy?!

Upper image, caption: ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa is saying, “We need to act now, before the impacts of climate change worsen and further erode the region’s hard-won development gains.” Lower image: Continuing from Mr Asakawa: “The support will be targeted, integrated, and impactful to help vulnerable people, particularly vulnerable women, in the near-term, while bolstering food systems to reduce the impact of emerging and future food security risks.”

The $14 Billion loan package for 2022-2025 by the ADB “will be channeled through existing and new projects in sectors including farm inputs, food production and distribution, social protection, irrigation, and water resources management, as well as projects leveraging nature-based solutions.”

I go back to the management lessons on Vision and Mission I cited above. Therefore: When a country requests for a loan, I recommend that the ADB require clear statements of both the Vision and Mission of the project to be funded.

And, the ADB must prioritize the solution of Farmer Poverty and resolution of Climate Change – the modern Double Troublethat actually have the Same Origin: Conventional or Chemical Agriculture (CA). Quite unobtrusively, chemical fertilizers bring down incomes of farmers and bring up greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause Climate Change. And the common solution is: Regenerative Agriculture (RA) – a practical approach being organic methods of farming.

I myself have been proselytizing about organic farming for at least 15 years, especially when then-US Vice President Al Gore came out campaigning against Climate Change. Thus –

Solving Farmer Poverty: Chemical fertilizers are very expensive while organic fertilizers are either inexpensive or can be produced by the farmers themselves. Also, the government can produce those materials in aid of farming.

Resolving Climate Change: Organic fertilizers generate zero (0) GHGs and therefore help negate Climate Change.

Now, ADB – are you listening?@517

 

“We All Lead Public Lives” – That’s My Latest Rendering Of The Name Of My New Blog, “Multiples Of I’s”

I turned 82 on Sept 17; Randy David will be 76 on Jan 08 – he is in Wikipedia(Randy David), and I am not. He is an alumnus of UP (Diliman) and so am I (Los Baños) – he is a sociologist and I am an agriculturist. So why am I admiring him? Because he has an open mind, not the usual UP mindset of being anti.

Joy Duldulaoshares on Facebook today, Monday, 02 Jan 2023, Randy David’s column “Notes To Oneself” at the Inquirer(opinion.inquirer.net). Very practical! He himself judges his list thus: “Great pieces of advice!” To that, he adds: “I confirm the sublime practicality of some of them (#11 and #13, for instance)” – but he forgot to number them! At 76, this 82 fellow communicator forgives him. (Oh yes, his list numbers 26. My MS Word counted it for me when I selected the whole list and clicked “Numbering” – on my own, I self-learned that word processing lesson at least 22 years ago.)

Randy: “When you’ve reached a certain age, you give up trying to be a different kind of person. You learn to accept who you are and stop making those yearly resolutions with which you used to start the new year. It doesn’t mean though that, henceforth, anything goes. Rather, you find yourself veering toward what Nietzsche calls the “great and rare art” of “giving style” to your character.

Frank: “My Person: Differently, I have been trying to be a different kind of person – more forgiving, more loving. And I will continue to do so. My Blogging: I am now trying to be more inclusive, that is why I have this new blog: “Multiples Of I’s” (Slogan: “We must think in multiples of I’s”). Born yesterday, literally: 30 Dec 2022, on the date of death of date of my favorite hero, Jose Protacio Rizal. Yes, Rizal thought for the good in multiples of I’s, unlike Andres Bonifacio, who thought for the bad in multiples of I’s.

What I mean is that Rizal wanted the Philippines to be a province of Spain. Here is a pertinent entry in Britannica(“José Rizal,” britannica.com):

Rizal’s political program included integration of the Philippines as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament), the replacement of Spanish friars by Filipino priests, freedom of assembly and expression, and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law.

Rizal was thinking in multiples, not individuals – My hero!

Randy’s #8 is this: “Focus on the future you seek rather than on the future you fear. Resist fatalism, and always remember that dire assessments of the future can become self-fulfilling.”

As a self-taught crusading digital journalist who happens to be college-trained as an agriculturist, the future I seek for the Philippines is that of rich farmers and happy habitats – Farmer Poverty has been conquered and Climate Change subjugated. That is why I keep blogging/plugging about Regenerative Agriculture (RA), because RA regenerates not only farm families but also the natural countryside.@517

Appreciating Organic Farming – And Agriculture Magazine (AgriMag), Monthly Publication Of Manila Bulletin

Here’s appreciating the eminent dangers of Climate Change in the air, literally & figuratively, and knowing the role of modern agriculture in generating greenhouse gases (GHGs) that invariably generate the climate crisis. As a crusading self-taught aggie journalist and editor in chief, I am engrossed in articles that address the climate crunch – we have to write & write about it!

My attention this time is on Agriculture Magazine (AgriMag), the one published monthly by the Manila Bulletin. AgriMag used to be edited by an acquaintance-friend, Zacarias “Zac” Sarian, who died 07 Dec 2020. I just googled the AgriMag website and I find I am the only author published who is banging his head against agriculture and its generation of GHGs. Unfortunately!

Aside: I also googled for any magazine published in the Philippines giving major attention on the climate emergency – and found zero, which is a major disaster in itself. I have been thinking of editing-and-publishing one, except that I have yet to find a financier. (Producing issues is no problem, because I can be the author of numerous articles and simultaneously the one-man band digital editor up to and including producing the portable document format that goes to the print-on-demand printer.)

As I was saying before I interrupted myself, AgriMag did publish 4 of my climate change articles:

(1)   13 Sept 2019, AgriMag,agriculture.com.ph: “Appreciating Climate Change“

(2)   03 Oct 2019, AgriMag, agriculture.com.ph: “Appreciating Organic Farming“

(3)   13 Oct 2019, AgriMag, agriculture.com.ph:  “Appreciating Organic Certification“

(4)   08 Nov 2019, AgriMag, agriculture.com.ph: “Appreciating Sustainable Development“.

Here are excerpts:

Appreciating Climate Change

Climate change is the world’s Number 1 science topic today, and it relates to crops in Agriculture such as rice, corn, and wheat.

And how does inorganic, or non-organic, or conventional agriculture contribute to climate change? From agriculture, CH4 is emitted by livestock and N2O comes from nitrogenous fertilizers used by farmers.

Appreciating Organic Farming

Today, many are talking about organic farming – but not quite knowledgeably. Organic farming applies to Agriculture and the related scientific fields of Forestry and Horticulture. To simplify: Agriculture is growing field crops; Forestry is growing tree crops; and Horticulture is growing farm & garden crops; except for Animal Husbandry in Agriculture, they all concern the growing of crops.

Appreciating Organic Certification

The OCCP [Organic Certification Center of the Philippines] claims in its webpage that “it is a standard-setting and certification body.” If there is no official certification of the status of a certain farmer, group, or product, anybody can claim that the farm produce is organic, and nobody can question that claim.

Appreciating Sustainable Development

[FAO] defines sustainable development as “the management and conservation of the natural resource base, and the orientation of technological and institutional change in such a manner as to ensure the attainment and continued satisfaction of human needs for present and future generations.”

I am sure that those 4 AgriMag articles of mine provided a good glimpse of how Conventional/Chemical Agriculture contributes to Climate Change. What I am not sure of is that AgriMag paid me!@517