Web Trainings & Seminars – Too Much ICT In India & The Philippines!?

Morning, noon and evening, we have all kinds of information & communication technology (ICT) activities, seminars & trainings; this is all the exciting agricultural extension we need! Isn’t it?

Many and exciting, yes, but not anywhere the complete Extension we need in Agriculture – they are essentially come-ons, patikims (feed-ons), indicators of what people can learn if the extension of knowledge happened by training– necessarily with (a) subsequent refreshing and (b) augmenting the knowledge gained by experience.

After any training, you cannot expect Mastery! Graduating, we only have a novice, a beginner.

Yes, further training must happen after the initial training!
Training makes one somewhat knowledgeable, not fully.

There are several public and private training institutions (and individuals in groups) in agriculture, and they all behave like that – after every training, they act as if they are completely done. And look for other people to train.

No wonder that, for instance, we have extensive monocultures of rice – we train farmers to plant a new, high-yielding rice variety – and nothing more!

What about rice plus fish in the same farm? (Don’t tell me it will be expensive and take a long time: you can produce a training video and simply replay it in subsequent trainings. Or upload it.)

I’m reading the essay of Indian aggie extensionist A Suresh titled “Blog 158 – Streamlining Public Agricultural Extension In India: Indicators Beyond Revenue Expenditure Considerations[1]” (30 August 2021, Agricultural Extension in South Asia, Aesanetwork.org). Mr Suresh is worried that Indian extension is being reduced in personnel because of the very visible “penetration of modern information and communication technologies.”
(top image from Indian website)

India is complaining of too much ICT in agriculture!?

“Calls for reducing staff strength in public agricultural extension services (are) increasingly visible in policy circles, mainly due to revenue expenditure commitments and penetration of modern information and communication technologies.”

What kind of penetration? I am a Filipino extension man, teacher with a BS Agriculture major in Ag Edu from the #1 state college in the Philippines, UP Los Baños, a self-taught digital worker and warrior, now armed with his own theory of Communication for Development (ComDev). Web trainings and webinars are only the beginnings of extension; extension people must continue the actual distribution of bits & pieces of knowledge that a genuine Extension System with a proper Knowledge Bank would present to the public.

Among other things, Mr Suresh points to “the importance of a personal farm-specific advisory appropriate to the specific strengths and opportunities at the farm level.” That, I would say, summarizes the need of farmers for elementary and continuing extension. With ComDev.

(Mr Suresh mentions some regular duties of extension people: “supply of agricultural inputs including seeds and fertilizers, quality checking and certification, disbursal of subsidies and other financial support, crop loss estimates.”)

Webinars and trainings are available to all, but each one is only the beginning of extension, not the end of it! Otherwise, the effect will be the same if you simply distribute a farming manual in the local dialect!@517

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[1]https://www.aesanetwork.org/blog-158-streamlining-public-agricultural-extension-in-india-indicators-beyond-revenue-expenditure-considerations/?fbclid=IwAR2hBwOhgzu7LJwHlk13Au1ADrrG24Kpm0hoZb3gJwdX_Sd7as4BuaVjK4E

For Me, A September Birthday Gift From Microsoft – Why Not, Bill Gates!?

The above composite image is a surprise – I did not compose it; Microsoft’s Windows 10 did! Magically. This is my unbelievable story.

I have been using for 2 years Windows 10 along with Microsoft Word 2016for writing, editing, blogging, desktop publishing, including cropping images. And yes, I have blogged at least 5000 long essays and desktop published at least 20 books with earlier versions of Word since 2005!

Much earlier: On Innocents Day 36 years ago, 28 December 1985, I started learning word processing – a girl helped me with an IBM desktop PC at the Director’s office of the UP Los Baños’ Farming Systems & Soil Resources Institute (FSSRI), with WordStar 1. She was grumpy – she told me, pointblank, “Mabuti ka pa, libre ang aral mo! Ako, nagbayad.” (Good for you! You’re learning free, while I had to pay.) I said nothing. I had requested the Director of FSSRI, my classmate Elpidio L Rosario, to tell her to teach me, and she had to follow orders. When she lent me the complete WordStar guidebook (I forgot how many pages), I began typing the instructions (I was already a fast typist at that time), and in a day or two I had my copy of the WordStar instruction manual – I returned the original with thanks. Thus I began to roam the digital world!

Around 1987, at the headquarters of the Madecor Group, also headed by Pids Rosario, I met a common friend, Jerry A Canonizado (JAC) and I bragged that WordStar 4 was the best word processor. Pointblank, JAC said, “How can you say that when you have not even tried Microsoft Word 4?” Shame on me.

Afterwards, I tried Word 4 – and I never left Microsoft!

Like I just told you, I’m now using Windows 10, and I have in my folders a collection of accidental Windows 10 collages, 445 “individual” images. I put the word “individual” in quotes because, like the image above, you can see composite images that I did not compose, my Windows 10 did!

Above is my LumixFZ100 digital camera’s image of my desktop laptop’s external ViewSonic monitor. Onscreen, it says, “03:13 Tuesday, 17 September.” My God! That’s my birthday! (year 2019, image number P2140619, jpeg).

It’s not the first such image I have with exact time and date – the first Windows 10 collage I have in my folder is dated 21 April 2018, some 18 months earlier.

I have googled for – “Windows 10” collage images –  and saw too-formal, nice-looking images of shapes and figures. But none exciting as the one you see above.

Of course, when I work for my own blog or my own book, I must be excited. Those Windows 10 collages I have, accidental as they are, have directly provided me more impetus – and more fun – working with Microsoft Word in my blogging. Accidents happen, and these collages are the kinds that even Microsoft Corporation should welcome!

Microsoft, doesn’t Frank A Hilario deserve a special award for dis/uncovering a special talent of Windows 10? Thanks!@517

Introducing – Frank A Hilario, “The Happy Blogger Who Talks Trass!”

September is my birth month; on the 17^th, Friday, I will be 81 – and I must not forget to thank God! I have been asking Him to let me live up to 120 – at least 100!

The above image states the date (in 2018) and suggests “1940” when I was born. I am beginning to celebrate with a new blog, where you are reading this: Tradition, Science & Sense (Trass), https://traditionsciencesense.blogspot.com. This is the first essay of The Happy Blogger Who Talks Trass! (See outline of face above?)

The Hilarios are Roman Catholics. As was required by the parish priest at that time, the name of a newborn came from the Roman Catholic calendar, that of the saint that birth day, and the 17^th of September is the Feast of the Stigmata of St Francis. Localized, the name “Francisco Hilario” was registered in the archives of the Roman Catholic Church of my hometown Asingan in eastern Pangasinan.

“Francisco” did not last very long because in Elementary, when I wrote my name “Francisco Hilario” on top of the Grade 1 paper, the designated line-space was too short! Solution? My father Lakay Disiong (Dionisio Hilario) requested Mrs Bautista to change my recorded name from “Francisco” (9 letters) to “Frank” (5 letters), and she consented. Problem solved. “Frank” was the name of an American soldier who became a family friend during World War 2.

2021. I have been writing essays more than half of my life. Based on the “Multiple Intelligences” theory of Howard Gardner, I have Linguistic Intelligence, which I would consider “idea smart” rather than “word smart” – an essay is not a list of words as in a dictionary but a string of ideas expressed in one’s own manner or style of language.

I will tell you now how I discovered my smart. I attended a private high school, the HS Dept of the Rizal Junior College (RJC), located in the town proper of our hometown. Asingan is mostly Ilocanos, migrants from the Ilocos Region. Even before Grade 1, I had already found that I loved reading the Ilocano monthly magazine Bannawag, but it was in the RJC Library that I discovered I loved more the English language. The RJC had the whole downstairs of a medium-sized house turned into a library, full of books and magazines, British and American classics, and the American magazines I liked: LOOK, TIME, Newsweek, and the Reader's Digest. I particularly enjoyed reading the classics and the Digest.

In 4^th Year High, our Tagalog teacher Ms Constancia E Cruz gave a writing contest to find out who should be the Tagalog Editor of the RJC Newsletter proposed, and I won – surprise! This Ilocano won over the pure and lovers of Tagalog! When I found I had won, I said to myself, more or less, this: “So this is where my talent lies. I will be the best writer I can be!”

At almost 81, after blogging at least 5 million words since 2005, I can tell you that I fulfilled that self promise.@517

Think! Proposal For PH DA To Spend P1.7 Billion For A Knowledge Bank

 

I just learned that our Department of Agriculture (DA) has P9.8 Billion of unspent funds – that reflects the Ilocano in Secretary of Agriculture William Dar. Another Ilocano, I’m thinking of helping spend fast P1.7 Billion going digital, creating this last quarter of the year a Knowledge Bank for 5 million Filipino farmers.
(“Knowledge Bank” image[1] from Knowledge Bank, Facebook)

The Commission on Audit (COA) has come out with a negative spending report on the DA. Ralf Rivas says, “COA Questions DA For P9.8-Billion Unspent Funds, Wrong Farmers’ Lists[2]” (19 August 2021, Rappler). Wrong lists? Today, as Editor In Chief of 46 years and Internet-ready for 30 years, I am more interested into what the DA could use the funds for:

P1.7 Billion as Intelligence Fund in Agriculture.

This particular Intelligence Fund is for creating a universal, limitless Knowledge Bank that is actually the brains of SMART JUAN: Stored Matter Adapted To Rural Terrain Translated For Johns Utilizing Agricultural Notes, Notions, Novelties In Science. (See my first essay about it, “Smart Juan” – The Digital Renaissance Of “Juan Tamad” Into An All-Knowing Farmer[3],” 15 August 2021, TIT for TAT. Why not check out 2 other enlightening essays on the same subject.)

With that P1.7 Billion budget, all 109 state colleges & universities[4] (SCUs) scattered all over these islands can be active in gathering lessons learned in science, recording in digital forms successful as well as failed experiences in the raising of crops and animals. The top 10 SCUs will be assigned P100 million each, the rest to share the remaining P700,000,000. The headquarters will be at the campus of the #1 of the SCUs: UP Los Baños. Hundreds, nay thousands of staff each armed with a laptop will be hired by the SCUs for knowledge works.

Let us cultivate the PH farmer intelligently.

The P1.7 Billion will be spent on gathering and processing data and information into an Internet-based, farmer-understandable and decider-friendly knowledge base.

To explain a little, let me briefly discuss the insufficiencies of 2 existing examples of knowledge products, 1 each from IRRI and PhilRice.

IRRI’s “Nutrient Manager for Rice (NMRice)” –
This is limited to rice and supplying nutrients. And IRRI is assuming there is only 1 rice variety! Also, I know there are other options than applying fertilizer on any crop.

PhilRice’s “Usapang Barayti: NSIC Rc 480” (“Talking Variety”) –
Without positioning the variety, PhilRice is recommending this one at once!

We must be cultivating the Filipino farmer as a SMART JUAN.

For instance, with so many rice varieties to choose from, Juan is bewildered and so you must awaken the smart in him.

SMART JUAN is a Knowledge Bank you can draw from much information, instructions, inspirations, insights, alternatives, applications, opportunities, options – you decide for yourself.

Unlike SMART JUAN, IRRI’s “Nutrient Manager for Rice” and PhilRice’s “Usapang Barayti” instruct the farmer exactly what to do and does not discuss the whys and wherefores. They are thinking for Juan.

Let us teach Filipino farmers to think for themselves!@517

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[1]https://www.facebook.com/Knowledge-Bank-112879070400418/photos/

[2]https://www.rappler.com/business/department-agriculture-unspent-funds-wrong-farmers-list-coa-report-2020

[3]https://titfortatteachingindependentthinking.blogspot.com/2021/08/smart-juan-digital-renaissance-of-juan.html

[4]https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/the-philippine-star/20111218/284532995001733

“English, The Great Language Of Democracy” – Who Said That? Manuel Luis Quezon!

 

“English, the great language of democracy, will bind us forever to the people of the United States and place within our reach the wealth of knowledge treasured in this language.”

I am celebrating PH President Manuel Luis Quezon’s (MLQ’s) birthday Thursday, 19 August, with him saying that[1] 30 December 1937, Rizal Day. In the same breath, MLQ said:

The fact that we are going to have our national language does not mean that we are to abandon in our schools the study or the use of the Spanish language, much less English…. English, the great language of democracy, will bind us forever to the people of the United States and place within our reach the wealth of knowledge treasured in this language.

Even Quezon, your favorite nationalist, acknowledged the power of the English language in the matter of knowledge!

Me, a full-blooded Ilocano, informally adopted (American) English as my primary intellectual language sometime in the mid-50s when I was 1^st year high school in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, exulting mentally with the well-stocked library of the HS Dept of private Rizal Junior College (RJC) full of American and British classic books of fiction and history, and the American magazines LOOK, Newsweek, Reader's Digest (my favorite), and TIME. RJC’s was a poor boy’s library of the world full of truth & fiction.

The latest related news is: “Philippine High School Students Win Historic 1st Gold In World Debate Championships[2]” (17 August 2021, Margo Hannah De Guzman Quadra, Good News Pilipinas). The victory was achieved in the 2021 “World Schools Debate Championships” virtually held in Macau from 26 July to 06 August 2021. Via China, young Filipinos were/are teaching us old Filipinos!

The champion Philippine team members were Robert Nelson Leung (Philippine Science High School, Cordillera Administrative Region Campus – Gold Medal); David Bloom, International School of Manila; Jake Peralta, Southridge High School; Riva Fong, De La Salle Zobel; and Chanel Ang, Immaculate Conception Academy.

If we want to continue to excel in our country and abroad, we must make English the National Language of Filipinos!

Sorry, MLQ. But I thank you that your Executive Order 134 “Proclaiming The National Language Of The Philippines Based On The ‘Tagalog’ Language” also states:

Such an adoption of the Philippine National Language shall not be understood as in any way affecting the requirement that the instruction in the public schools shall be primarily conducted in the English language.

In the lower image above, MLQ is quoted as saying:

I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than a country run like heaven by the Americans, because however a bad Filipino government might be, we can always change it.

Now then, we have a bad national language, I now move that we change it!

English is the language of modern (and ancient) knowledge – those nationalist Filipinos who insist that we talk to each other in a Tagalog-based language are trying their best to keep Filipinos' knowledge of the world in the 1940s, left out in time!@517

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[1]https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1937/12/30/speech-of-president-quezon-on-filipino-national-language-december-30-1937/

[2]https://www.goodnewspilipinas.com/philippine-high-school-students-win-historic-1st-gold-in-world-debate-championships/?fbclid=IwAR2Lt1BFj6pEczrN1FvOcP64CJwlsfjo-mddrE8hZZkQV8tKnViz48sRb-8

Internet of Thoughts Agriculture (IoTA), With Science, Coops & Loans Driving Farm Management

 

I’m talking about Digitally Abled Agriculturevia Google searches for advices, choices, concerns, experiences, instructions, options, philosophies, procedures, and theories in farming. Farmers incessantly learning from an inexhaustible online library of knowledge.

SMART JUAN. Yes, it operates with The Internet-Ready 5 Ws of Agriculture: Who, What, Where, When & Why.
(upper image[1] from PNA.gov.ph;
lower image[2] from ATI.da.gov.ph)

This is a follow-up to my SMART JUAN proposal for digitally informed agriculture contained in 2 essays, both published in this blog, TIT for TAT: (1) “‘Smart Juan’ – The Digital Renaissance Of ‘Juan Tamad’ Into An All-Knowing Farmer[3],” 15-08-2021; and (2) “What Agriculture Can Do To Help Control Climate Change[4],” 16-08-2021.

A Knowledge Basefor PH Agriculture, SMART JUAN means: “Stored Matter Adapted To Rural Terrain Translated For Johns Utilizing Agricultural Notes, Notions, Novelties In Science.” (“Johns” is English plural of Filipino moniker “Juan,” from “Juan De La Cruz.”)

Yes, I am recommending that the Department of Agriculture (DA) under Secretary of Agriculture William Dar generate a DA Program called “SMART JUAN” as a digital library of agriculture as described here. The Internet of Thoughts Agriculture (IoTA).

The name is original, the thought not. In 2003, Director General William Dar of the India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) submitted a concept he called “Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture (OpAPA),” proposing that Philippine agriculture offices generate an online library. As a PhilRice consultant, recruited by PhilRice Executive Director Leo Sebastian, in reaction I internalized & externalized & submitted a digital book I called The Geography Of Knowledge (TGoK), 198 pages, dated 2003 – I still have a complete pdf copy of it. Its latest incarnation is what I now call SMART JUAN.

I’m thinking of a special DA Internet program involving PH's Top Ten state colleges & universities (SCUs) in the Philippines, with UP Los Baños as the program’s headquarters – emphasis on the “head,” as UPLB is #1 when it comes to SCUs science in the Philippines.

Additionally, the UPLB campus is physically & intellectually enriched with several Philippine institutions: Ecosystems Research & Development Bureau (ERDB); Forest Products Research & Industries Development Commission (FORPRIDECOM); National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH); and Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic & Natural Resources Research & Development (PCAARRD). Plus: international institutions: Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture (SEARCA).

I superimposed the logo of Nagkaisa Multipurpose Cooperative in my hometown of Asingan, Pangasinan, to indicate knowledge as I had been for a few years a member of the Nagkaisa board, and to drive the point home that coops should be the main conduit for the Internet of Helps & Financing (IoHF). The IoHF will help the farmers with loans and farm management. The Agricultural Credit & Policy Council (ACPC) should be much involved in this, via coopbanks: Farm management supervision must be required for loans.

Uniquely then, the whole program IoTA will handhold the Filipino farmers.@517

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[1]https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1078457

[2]https://ati.da.gov.ph/ati-3/content/digital-farmers-program

[3]https://titfortatteachingindependentthinking.blogspot.com/2021/08/smart-juan-digital-renaissance-of-juan.html

[4]https://titfortatteachingindependentthinking.blogspot.com/2021/08/what-agriculture-can-do-to-help-control.html

“Smart Juan” – The Digital Renaissance Of “Juan Tamad” Into An All-Knowing Farmer

From the name identifier of a Filipino, from “Juan De La Cruz” has come a derogatory nickname: “Juan Tamad” (Lazy Juan, Lazy One). Today, I am reinventing the national ID into “Smart Juan” using the cellphone in his farming!

All sciences and all experiences in agriculture should be in the mind. Or, which is the equivalent, accessible via and readable in the ordinary cellphone.
(image of “Wisdom[1]” from Pixabay.com;
image of cellphone-field[2] from Jack Matthew)

Today, what do we need to grow in our forests & farms? Wisdom! Now is the time for all good books to come to the aid of our country! 

To read more books would result in Wisdom? In Bewilderment if you’re not careful.

I was reading Jowelle Ann Cruz’ news report, “Aboitiz Group, DA Partner To Digitalize PH Agriculture[3]” (04 August 2021, Megabites), on that date virtually launching “Byaheng Digiskarte ni Ani at Kita” – loosely translated, “digital journeys for harvests and earnings” (above, text image superimposed):

Recognizing the value of innovation and technology to advance business and communities especially amid the pandemic, the Aboitiz Group in partnership with the Department of Agriculture (DA) launched “Byaheng Digiskarte ni Ani at Kita” or BiDA Kita. BiDA Kita is a mentoring program designed to help agri-enterprises become digital and it is aligned with the key strategy of One DA Reform Agenda, which is Technology, Innovation and Digital Agriculture.

“Designed to help agri-enterprises become digital” – why not “Designed to help Juan De La Cruz, the farmer, become Smart Juan who is adept at using the cellphone anywhere as his partner in his farming?!”

But there is a problem: How can the cellphone help a non-high school farmer google for aggie information? And there is an even bigger and prior problem: There is no Knowledge Bank easy for farmers to use and turn them all into Smart Juans.

Precisely! That’s why I am proposing the digital construct I call SMART JUAN, which is acronym for: Stored Matter Adapted To Rural Terrain Translated For Johns Utilizing  Agricultural Notes, Notions, Novelties In Science.

As a Knowledge Bank, Smart Juan will comprise the latest science, thinking and experiences in crops & livestock, including harvesting, processing and marketing in the Philippines and in other Southeast Asian countries.

(Some mentoring required. If the farmer does not understand, there’s the Municipal Agriculturist.)

How do you make Smart Juan, a Knowledge Bank, a source of wisdom? Put in Options.

How does it work? Take rice. There are selections for varieties: heirloom, hybrid, inbred.  

Farmer types into his cellphone (or personal computer): “rice Asingan” then presses/clicks Go/Enter. (With “rice Asingan,” the farmer is restricting his search to “rice good for the town of Asingan in Pangasinan.”) Smart Juan asks him to click any of the entries:

Heirloom Rice – (varieties listed)
Hybrid Rice – (varieties listed)
Inbred Rice. – (varieties listed)

Farmer clicks the mouse or presses the screen on the item s/he is interested in or wants to know more about. The beginning of A Journey Of Wisdom In Agriculture!@517

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[1]https://pixabay.com/photos/wisdom-books-education-knowledge-3071110/

[2]https://jackmathew.medium.com/how-mobile-technology-is-energizing-farming-operations-e97e75da0b7

[3]https://www.megabites.com.ph/aboitiz-group-da-partner-to-digitalize-ph-agriculture/