After Heading IRRI Pushing “Green Revolution” For Asians, MS Swaminathan Intellectualized “Evergreen Revolution” For All!

In 1987, Indian scientist and leader MS Swaminathan, former IRRI Director General, 1972-1980, became the very first World Food Prize winner “for developing and spearheading the introduction of high-yielding wheat and rice varieties into India during the 1960s when that country faced the prospect of widespread famine” (World Food Prize Foundation, worldfoodprize.org).

After that, Swaminathan outperformed himself and brainchilded the “Evergreen Revolution” that ANN says “involves the integration of ecological principles in technology development and dissemination” (Author Not Named, 16 April 2017, “Father Of Green Revolution Gives Call For ‘Evergreen Revolution’,” Times of India, timesofindia.indiatimes.com). My translation of the technical: “Go Organic!”

Santiago Rigonan Obien(SRO) is the founding Executive Director(ED) of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) – he was ED from 1987 to 2000 (when age forced him to retire from government service). 13 years – thus, it was SRO who brought up PhilRice from initial idea to international importance, yes!

Surprise! I saw SRO’s Facebookpost Thursday, 23 Feb 2023 (middle image, partly shown above), and this was my comment:

After the Green Revolution (chemical agriculture), Indian Swaminathan is now into the "Brown Revolution" (organic agriculture) – why is Filipino PhilRice still in the Green Revolution stage? asking as a friend!😎

“Brown Revolution” is my term for people today turning away from the Green Revolution and going organic.  

Today, I am urging PhilRice, whoever is the Executive Director, to bring this institution from being a national climate-change Goliath into a national climate-change David – “Go Organic Rice!”

That goes with the Rockefeller-Ford funded International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) – this local agriculturist alumnus of UP Los Baños is advising that international agency to “Go Organic Rice!”

Unsolicited, my additional advice to both PhilRice and IRRI – Remember to test and grow your favorite rice variety/ies in all the ways you want, in all the places you can go – but please don’t forget to “Go Organic”!

My question: “Why can’t IRRI and PhilRice go Organic Rice when private company Renucci Rice can? No, I am neither family nor writer-from-home (WFH) for the Renuccis. From the Renucci website, we have this (renuccirice.ph):

The Rice Revolution

Transforming the Rice Industry – Renucci Rice is the game-changer. The first of its kind in the Philippine market. While most rice brands are mixed with imported grains, stale and laced with artificial fragrance and pesticides, Renucci Rice is 100% produced in Leyte, 100% traceable, and 100% safe. Now Filipinos know exactly where their rice comes from. Only Renucci Rice is from the source. Renucci Rice is pure, unmixed, clean and delicious.

As a communicator for community development (ComDev) and as a fighter against Farmer Poverty and Climate Change, I endorse Renucci Rice because I believe that it is “Healthier White Rice” and that it is “Safe and Clean” – yes, Ma’am, there’s “Goodness in every grain” (renuccirice.ph).

In my 43 years of communicating for community development, starting with print media in 1975 and, starting 1991, scouring the digital media as I blogged, the uncommon story of Renucci Rice farmers uplifts my heart!@517

ClimateChange & Tourism – Can David & Goliath Ever Be Friends & Cultivate Each Other?

We can learn from Red China about restoring Green Landscapes for the sake of attracting more Tourists and at the same time advancing the interests of our own Tribes in the matter of resources both natural and financial! I mean, we should learn how to deal with Climate Change in order to be able to deal with Primate Change – we have to teach our own people how to conserve the natural resources for their own sake.

Here is a friendly individual and/or amiable agency we can learn from and be assured of assistance. ANN says, “Science And Tradition Drive China-Wide Effort To Restore Landscapes” (16 Feb 2023, Author Not Named, UNEP, unep.org):

Ahead of Global Tourism Resilience Day on 17 February, which promotes sustainable tourism for poverty eradication and environmental protection, we take a look at a large-scale, award-winning initiative in China to restore ecosystems from mountains to coastal estuaries across the country.

In those 41 words above, I find my 2 favorite dreamwishes: “poverty eradication” and “environmental protection.” More precisely, I have been writing about how to solve Farmer Poverty and resolve Climate Change.

Now, that country has the “Great Walls of China” as one of the 7^th Wonders of the World – while my country claims the “Banaue Rice Terraces” as the “8^th Wonder of the World” (tripadvisor.com.ph). Sylva says, “I have to say it truly is a magical place, so amazing, and utterly beautiful.”

But because of Climate Change, I do not wonder that all those 8 wonders of the world, and more, are disappearing before our eyes! We now need Christian Science and an uncommon Creative Sense to restore our natural resources – and excite our own wonder!

ANN says the Chinese are busy restoring their village’s beauty and goodness:

Armed with billhooks, hammers and their bare hands, villagers in China's eastern Yunhe County are methodically clearing a series of abandoned hillside rice fields, many perched dramatically over a yawning valley. These terraced paddies had long ago fell into disuse, a product of a strained rural economy. But villagers are aiming to make the land productive again by weeding out invasive plants and building walls to prevent soil erosion.

China’s “abandoned hillside rice fields” and the Philippines’ “abandoned hillside rice terraces” – are suffering the same fate using the same artificial means of maintaining and/or returning the fertility of the soil: “Chemical Agriculture” (CA). Whether you are a farmer in Chongqing or Cavite, your CA is destructive of the natural wealth of the soil, as well as the natural balance of plant and animal lives – all of which disturbs the climate adversely:

What we do comes back to us!

“[The Chinese] villagers are aiming to make the land productive again by weeding out invasive plants and building walls to prevent soil erosion.”

Not enough! This Filipino agriculturist – UP Los Baños alumnus, Ag Edu 1965 – can teach Chinese farmers what I learned from American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner – the basics of organic agriculture (OA). OA defeats farmer poverty and Climate Change simultaneously!@517

Brown Rice As Health (& Earth) Food – 22 Years After Asia Rice Foundation Launched That Campaign

Today, my wife Ampy (Tagala) and I (Ilocano) prefer brown rice to white rice. It was not like this before. Some 14 years ago, when Asia Rice Foundation launched its brown rice campaign, I wasn’t enamored. I was thinking of the taste of the rice, not the health of the consumer!

(“Brown rice” from amp.rappler.com), “Regenerative” from flaticon.com)

The last time I talked about the Asia Rice Foundation (Asia Rice) and its campaign for brown rice was 14 years ago when I blogged “Blue Ocean, Brown Rice. If You Can’t Beat Them, Junk Them!” (24 Apr 2009, Frank A Hilario, frankahilario.blogspot.com):

On 11 August 2000, headed by its Chair Emil Q Javier, Asia Rice launched a campaign to promote brown rice as a health food at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, targeting the LBSC, Los Baños Science Community in the town of Los Baños in Laguna, some 60 km south of Manila. I didn’t know about that until today, surfing. I don’t know if they have been successful. I only know they have not been successful in convincing me to advocate brown rice. Of course, I’m rather difficult to please.

Times change. People change. Even the climate changes!

Today, with Climate Change staring everyone in the face, rich or poor, I am looking at Asia Rice and its brown rice advocacy of almost 23 years – well, it has succeeded on me! Today, since Asia Rice is based at the Los Baños Science Community (LBSC), I am challenging the whole of LBSC to rise as one to “sell” brown rice and simultaneously “sell” the basic need for healthy agriculture via:

Regenerative Agriculture (RA), yes. You can simply look at RA as organic farming, with your organic fertilizer. You contradict yourself if you grow brown rice not with black matter or organic fertilizer but with white matter or chemical fertilizer!

In those years, I was visiting Asia Rice at its “borrowed” office space at the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), which is based at the campus of UP Los Baños in Laguna. I am planning to visit Asia Rice and talk to one of its heads, Santiago Obien (SRO). We are both Ilocanos, so there should be no problem in communication! Wen ngarud a.

The science part is the headache. For instance, I still have to convince SRO that Organic SRI (System of Rice Intensification) is best for rice, including any hybrid variety – and best for the environment!

Here is Revelation to me – almost 8 years ago, I find Rappler already campaigning for brown rice AND climate change! I am now reading Renee Juliene Karunungan and her article, “Why Shifting To Brown Rice Matters” (27 May 2015, (amp.rappler.com):

In a country vulnerable to climate change and its impact, brown rice will help us face the threat of food insecurity.

Isn’t it great!? We are listening to a lady whose family name “Karunungan” translates to “Wisdom”! In here, I say the lady is a triumph!@517

Can A Catholic Journalist In The Philippines Learn From Nigeria’s Newest Cardinal Peter Ebere Okpaleke About Spreading Science As A Shared Desire For God?

Fundamental Question: “Can Science and Religion mix?” I believe so! A Roman Catholic, I believe that today I have seen how “my religion” can teach me to spread “my science” – now then, I am thinking how my being a Catholic in a community can help spread “The Gospel Of Regenerative Agriculture!”

Contrarian. On the Internet, where at 82+ I am much of the time, I am now reading Victor J Stenger, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Hawaii, who says (Nov 2014, “Debate: Can Religion And Science Co-Exist?” INEOS, ineos.com):

Religion and science are like oil and water. They might co-exist, but they can never mix to produce a homogeneous medium.

Nyet! Prof Stenger has probably never met a science journalist like me whose thinking is creative enough to see that, for instance, the objective is not to produce a homogeneous medium by mixing oil and water – but to allow the two not only to coexist but to cooperate with each other! Which is the major point of my essay today.

Now then, I am reading Courtney Mares’ article, “Nigeria’s Newest Cardinal Shares Secret Behind The Highest Mass Attendance In The World” (14 Feb 2023, CNA, catholicnewsagency.com) – and thinking:

Which of the 3 Nigerian Roman Catholic “secrets” can I borrow from to spread the scientific Gospel of Regenerative Agriculture – via spreading the Good News about Organic Agriculture!?

Ms Courtney says Cardinal Okpaleke believes that these 3 “secrets” have kept Nigerians “close to the sacraments generation after generation” – “Nigeria’s traditional worldview, the role of the family, and a sense of community within parishes.” And you know what? As a Filipino, I know that if we Filipino Catholics propagate those “virtues,” we will not only be able to cultivate more and deeper Catholics within Philippine communities but also sell more science to the people!

But how do you teach science to Catholic priests? You don’t! You talk to people – you simply ask permission from the priests to spread your “Gospel of Regeneration” – I just thought of this “gospel” now – to Catholic farmers inside and/or outside the walls of the church, anywhere in the community.

The “Gospel of Regeneration” – only the name is new, but I find that the “Gospel of Regenerative Agriculture” has been preached since 2019 – read “Activists Working To Expand Regenerative Agriculture In Great Lakes, Around The World” (03 Jan 2019, Transform, thetransformseries.net); Kevin Doyle Jones, co-founder of GatherLab, is being interviewed:

“What is the problem you [are trying to] solve and how do you solve it?”

Funding the missing gap to convert to regenerative agriculture within a community.

Pooling and sharing of risk to enable farmers to cover the three-year cost of migrating from conventional farming to organic and regenerative, which is beyond organic, to significant carbon sequestration through improved and deeper topsoil.

“Three-year cost of migrating from conventional farming to organic and regenerative” – why cannot Catholic scientists and journalists spread science as a shared desire for God?! Asking as a friend!@517

Michèle Boccoz, For The French’s Valentine’s “Gift” Of PhP9 Billion, This Filipino Says, “Je Vous Aime!” I Love You!

French Leave? No. French Love, Yes! Via Ms Michèle Boccoz, Ambassador of France, thru Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, we Filipinos have a French offering of PhP9 Billion this Valentine’s month. Counting back 2 years, the Philippines signed a PhP14 Billion loan with France “to support local governments’ disaster response.” If you want to measure love of country, let it be in billions! 
(Diokno and Boccoz from manilatimes.net), “Regenerative” from iybssd2022.org)

On Facebook, I read today, Sunday, 19 Feb 2023, the good news from France to help us Filipinos to tackle the bad news: “Cash Countering Climate Change.” France is not sending us her Three Musketeers – friends, she is sending us funds to finance our own army of battlers of Climate Change!

Ronnel W Domingosays, “France Offers P8.87B To Help PH Battle Climate Change” (17 January 2023, Inquirer. business.inquirer.net):

The Philippines’ efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change gets an added boost as the government of France made available 150 million euros (around P8.87 billion) in further financing through a loan that supports the Climate Change Action Program (CCAP).

History & Lit – Now I'm reading Wikipedia’s encyclopedic entry on The Three Musketeers (en.wikipedia.org), and it says Alexander Dumas wrote the novel at “a time when the debate in France between republicans and monarchists was still fierce.” The story was first serialized from March to July 1844, 4 years before the French Revolution of 1848. This time, a reader lover of adventure, I am thinking of a Philippine Revolution in Climate Change!

Provided through the French Development Agency, the additional funding for the CCAP’s Subprogram 1 is intended to help the Philippines scale up its efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

The intention includes PH efforts “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the deployment of renewable energies, improving energy efficiency and deploying sustainable transport.”

I did not see but I am interested to find out how our Citizen Climate Change Muskeeters will combat and defeat the common enemies called “Farmer Poverty” and “Climate Change” that after all arise from the same cause: Chemical Agriculture!

You can’t take that away from me – after all, I am an Agriculturist, an alumnus of UP Los Baños, BSA major in Ag Edu, 1965 – and the son of an Ilocano farmer from Asingan, Pangasinan. I taught myself creative writing; I also taught myself digital creative writing, editing, and desktop publishing – up to and including producing journals and books.

A wide reader since high school, and a writer-from-home for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) from 2000 to 2014, I began my intellectual journey into Climate Change when Al Gore and the IPCC co-won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 on their works on global warming.

I never left. Now then, I have been into Climate Change for the last 15 years. I have concrete ideas on how to be a Muskeeter fighting Farmer Poverty and Climate Change – via Regenerative Agriculture. I hope Mr Diokno is paying attention!@517

Queen Raquel Welch Is Dead. Long Live The Queen!

She died Wednesday, 15 Feb 2023; American actress, model & star Raquel Welch was 82. Filipino writer, I am 82, thank God! For her acting, she received a “Golden Globe” award in 1974 (at age 34); for my writing, I received the one-and-only historical “Outstanding Alumnus For Creative Writing” award from the UP Los Baños Alumni Association in 2011 (at age 71) – no other UP System alumnus recipient before or after. Raquel was dedicated to her art cultivating audiences in movies and on stage; Frank is dedicated to his art of cultivating soils in minds and on grounds – and now The Twain Shall Meet!

She was a Virgo, born Thursday, Sept 5; I am a Virgo, born Tuesday, Sept 17 – we were born in the same year: 1940. I am writing about Raquel Welch because of her love for her art: acting. I am writing about farmers because of my love for my art: journalism, and my field: Agriculture. Both arts are self-proclaimed.

She did not capitalize on her sex appeal with pictures; me, I would rather capitalize on my text appeal with pictures!

Above, lower image, about the anime is written: “Farming Life In Another World Teaser Visual Has Tia, Ru And Hiraku Enjoying The Abundant Farm” (26 Aug 2022, Leo Sigh, leosigh.com), and Michelle Topham writes:

The new “Farming Life In Another World” teaser visual features the beautiful angel Tia holding a bowl of freshly grown tomatoes in the foreground, while the cute blood-sucking vampire Ru Rurushi rushes down the orchard pathway towards protagonist, and master farmer, Hiraku Machio.

Hiraku’s beautifully abundant farmland stretches out around them.

In our real world, the blood-sucking vampire is called “Climate Change” and we need more master farmers like Hiraku Machio. What can we learn from Machio? Much! I can’t find the name of the writer, but s/he says:

After Hiraku dies of a serious illness, God brings him back to life, gives his health and youth back, and sends him to a fantasy world of his choice. In order to enjoy his second shot [at life], God bestows upon him the almighty farming tool!

All he can rely on is the knowledge he gained in his previous life and the power of the "universal farming tools" given to him by God. Even so, through trial and error, he is able to carve out his own land. Vampires, elves, angels, and even dragons gather around him, and his place of residence eventually develops into a village.

The “almighty farming tool” is not explained, but since it is given by God, I can only interpret it to be Organic Agriculture! Look at the lower image again, at the freshly grown tomatoes from a “beautifully abundant farmland.”

Above image: The 1966 British adventure fantasy “One Million Years B.C.” (Don Chaffey, Director) was “set in a fictional age of cavemen and dinosaurs coexisting together” (Wikipedia). In our world today, we cannot coexist with modern dinosaurs given birth to by Climate Change – we must conquer them with the almighty farming tool called Organic Agriculture!@517

 

Yes, Journalism Is Killing Itself Slowly, Even If Thinking Of The Nobel Peace Prize! Any Day, I Say, “Press Freedom Is Thinking Of My Own Nobel!”

Yes, I'm thinking of Filipina journalist & Rappler CEO Maria Ressa’s Nobel Peace Prize she co-won in 2021 with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov. Thinking withoutenvy. Rather, I am thinking of my own Nobel with my “THiNK! Journalism” – the term & concept of which I first came out with on 24 Oct 2017. I have always been an original!

(“#Myth” from careerninja.in), “World Press” from republicworld.com)

In the meantime, the practitioners of Truth Journalism, including Rappler’s own journalists, had kept complaining about being prevented from “Seeing and Saying the Truth.” The problem with their Truth is that it cannot even pass the “Rotary 4-Way Test!” –

1. Is it the TRUTH? 2. Is it FAIR to all concerned? 3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS? 4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Today, I go back to my THiNK! Journalism that I had forgotten in the last 6 years.

My friend JAQ had inspired me today, Friday, 17 Feb 2023, to practice 100% my own THiNK! Journalism, to go after the Nobel Peace Prize on my own terms, my Communication for Development(ComDev) ethos – and not follow the tried-and-tested approach such as proven by Miss Ressa.

By the way, I am using my 9-year old Lenovo“ThinkPad” laptop with its Intel Corei7processor, even as I am editing a new book major-authored by UPLB Prof (Ret) Teodoro C Mendoza – the book is Big and on a big topic: Organic Agriculture(OA). My son-in-law Karl Cerni and his wife, my daughter Maria Lorenagifted me for my 82^nd birthday last year, Sept 17, with a new HP 15.6” laptop with an “AMD Ryzen” processor and 16 GB RAM –

Suddenly, my 82-year old overall digital speed became that of a 28-year old! Thank God!

Meanwhile, I have my old Lenovo and my old self beginning today 100% dedicated to OA, which is part of Regenerative Agriculture(RA). And so, Nobel Peace Prize, here I come!

Many people, including in my country the Philippines, claim that journalism is dying. No, I don’t believe so – they are just allowing others, or themselves, to see without seeing!

My 2017 essay was “Think! Journalism: Calling For Nobler Kinds Of People In Media” (24 Oct 2017, Creative Thinkering, creativethinkering.blogspot.com; I had invented Think! Journalism 22 Oct 2017.) Some 6 years later, I spell it thus: “THiNK!” but it still runs thus: Is it True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring? Is it Necessary? Is it Kind? I said in that essay:

THINK! T? H? I? N? K? You must choose to answer all questions. Not choose which question to ask and answer. Think! journalism is journalism for the public; you as a journalist are answerable to your public conscience.

I even gave a slogan there: “Yak unto others what you want others yak unto you!”

Now then, as long as your yakking is in the name of ComDev, not necessarily in the form of THiNK! Journalism, proceed!@517