Digitally Reborn – (2) ABS-CBN Brings Palatable Food & Agriculture To The Cities

Urban Gardens Magazines. Plural!

My 2^ndproposal for ABS-CBN to resuscitate itself. Publish digital gardening magazines for the cities. Different magazines for fruits, flowers, ornamentals, trees, vegetables. All digital. Chic but cheap. Print on demand.

Above, on a US magazine, the main image says “Grow your own food[1]” (from LookBookReport). As caption to the inset image, Anna Bueno of CNN Philippines asks, “Can urban gardening flourish in Manila?” My answer: “Manilans must learn good urban gardening.” Easily digitally. I have already suggested Turning Agriculture into Digital – see “Digitally Reborn – (1) ABS-CBN Brings Digestible Science To The Farms & Homes[2]” (17 July 2020, THiNK Journalism, Digital).

I’m speaking from verifiable experience, and I alone can make the claim you can read as tagline to my blog Creative Thinkering:

World's creative genius online,
most prolific writer of non-fiction.
Frank A Hilario, Guru

That blog alone contains 1K plus essays of a minimum 1,000 words each, different topics.

What can ABS-CBN do now digitally? I recommend for it to create a digital company of bloggers, to which I will be willingly The Blogfather.

The Write Company of ABS-CBN.

All-digital, yes. Some 57 blog-magazines would be easy given the number of garden crops to work with, native and exotic. All digital – print editions at the expense of those who contract The Write Company.

How will ABS-CBN check me out when nobody knows me? Easy! Google for these blogs of mine:

THiNK Journalism, Digital, blogspot.com (reeducating Filipino journalists away from negative towards true, helpful, inspiring, necessary & kind, or THiNK Stories – a revolutionary idea)

A Magazine Called Love, blogspot.com (a rich hodgepodge of essays)
Creative Thinkering, blogspot.com (all about creative thinking & writing)
Pinoy Cinderella, blogspot.com (all about Charice Pempengco)
ICRISAT watch, blogspot.com

The last one is all about the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, which was/is based in India. ABS-CBN can ask Secretary of Agriculture William Dar who was Director General of ICRISAT when he hired me as international consulting writer, work from home, WFH, blogging from 2000 to 2014.

All in all, I have written and blogged some 6 million words or 6,000 articles/essays, each article a proper essay and not simply hodgepodge of paragraphs thrown in. So I should know whereof I write. About the art and science mostly of Agriculture and Creative Thinking/Writing.

For The Write Company, I will manage for ABS-CBN as Editor In Chief & Publisher. As Editor In Chief I will serve, when necessary, as Author’s Editor, to actively help a writer become the best writer s/he can be – from creative thinking to creative writing.

An agriculturist and a writer, I am volunteering to be to mentor the young staff from gathering background materials to desktop publishing. All digital. All WFH.

Naturally, The Write Company can also produce for ABS-CBN a digital magazine to serve its corporate purposes. Not to mention that any company can hire us to produce the corporate magazine the hiring company managers think they need.

Welcome ABS-CBN Online – at your service!@517

 

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[1]https://lookbookreport.com/review-the-loop-magazine-fb110ecbb0f0
[2]https://ithinkjournalism.blogspot.com/2020/07/digitally-reborn-1-abs-cbn-brings.html

Digitally Reborn – (1) ABS-CBN Brings Digestible Science To The Farms & Homes

Giant ABS-CBN Corp and its 11,000 employees all are now looking dejectedly at the future after the PH House of Representatives voted 70-11 denying renewal of its franchise.

Noontime, Saturday, 11 July 2020, I witnessed the tearing up and crying of masked employees of ABS-CBN, video on Facebook. Earlier, Angel Locsin shared that Kapamilya stars like her were dumbstruck, unable to think clearly what to do after that legislative denial.

Yesterday, on Facebook my brother-in-law Teddy Reynoso looked at it differently – that with the denial, it was like those 70 ladies & gentlemen jointly cast an animal into the sea thinking it would drown: It was a turtle!

Another metaphor: Here is ABS-CBN digitally reborn –

Agrikultura Lingkod Kapamilya.
Agriculture Serving The Family.

With this essay, I am suggesting that ABS-CBN swim in the waves of digital waters into the realms of PH Agriculture, whereby even via cellphone the science of the growing of food reaches the farmer anywhere anytime in his or her own terms. (cellphone images from LearningComputer.com[1])

ABS-CBN now brings you digital science!

Turning Agriculture into Digital is the best I can offer as a suggestion for A Second Life for ABS-CBN. I’m speaking from verifiable experience, as I alone can make the claim, that you can read as the tagline to my blog Creative Thinkering:

World's creative genius online,
most prolific writer of non-fiction.
Frank A Hilario, Guru

That blog contains by itself more than 1,000 essays of 1,000 words each, tightly crafted by a self-taught writer of 62 years and self-taught blogger of 13 years.

What can ABS-CBN do digitally? I recommend for it to create a virtual company of bloggers, to which I will be willingly The Blogfather:

The Write Company of ABS-CBN.

All-digital. Any and all topics in food and agriculture written and collected per blog per crop. At least 57 crops. Each blog viewable by cellphone. Downloads into a soft copy, Print on Demand.

Each blog continuously tackles the (a) cultivation of a separate farm crop such as abaca, banana, cacao, coconut, coffee, corn, rice, soybean, sugarcane grown singly or in combination with another crop, (b) technologies for good growth and yields, (c) harvest & postharvest systems, (d) processing, and (e) marketing – not to mention export.

But: ABS-CBN does not know me! No problem. Ask PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, for whom I was a Work From Home, WFH, international consulting writer when he was Director General of ICRISAT based in India, 2000-2014. I wrote and published 7 books for ICRISAT based on my blogposts.

All in all, I have written and blogged 6 million words or 6,000 articles/essays. So I should know whereof I speak: Science of Agriculture, including the Art of Creative Writing.

The Write Company, I propose to manage intellectually for ABS-CBN as Editor In Chief & Publisher. WFH.  The Editor In Chief will also serve as Author’s Editor, to actively help each writer become the best writer s/he can be.

The Write Company will be The Right Company for ABS-CBN!@517

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[1]https://www.learningcomputer.com/top-cell-phone-specs/

ABS-CBN & Media Freedom: Reboot, Not Rubout!

I’m a bloghound, not a TV hound, but media is media. Roman Catholic; I believe in Purgatory, and ABS-CBN has just been sent to Hell!

Today, Friday, 10 July 2020, PH House of Representatives turned down ABS-CBN Corp’s application for a new 25-year broadcast franchise, by these votes: 70 to Deny and 11 to Renew (Jim Gomez, “Lawmakers Vote To Close Down Philippines' Largest TV Network[1]”).

So I say: Today is PH supPress Freedom Day. The House members voted against Media Freedom, which is paramount – as suggested by the logo of World Press Freedom Day, 03 May 2019: a cellphone[2], meaning to every citizen belongs the exercise of that freedom.

Media freedom is the right of all citizens to use the media they prefer!

Nonetheless: Even if the House voted for a new 25-year contract for ABS-CBN, the problem of media freedom is still there:

I media man Frank A Hilario say: 
Media freedom is not that free!

I should know. I have been blogging earnestly since 2007 in millions of words in a hundred blogs. In my blog Creative Thinkering, my tagline is,“ World's creative genius online, most prolific writer of non-fiction. Frank A Hilario[3].” 

And if you look at the top of my current blog THiNK Journalism, Digital[4], you will note my long tagline, which explains the name and spells the claim:

True & Helpful & inspiring & Necessary & Kind Journalism, in Digital reality – singly by Frank A Hilario, the world's #1 blogger, Filipino.

And that makes my journalism a world apart! Even if it is concentrated on PH Agriculture under the leadership of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, who has the poor at heart.

All the other media men (embracing women) of the world go after the Truth – and then stop there. They do not care if the Truth is un-Helpful and/or un-Inspiring and/or un-Necessary and/or un-Kind!

Reboot, not Rubout!

I believe the 70 members of my country’s House of Representatives who voted to deny ABS-CBN a new lease in life were not using their head. They could have sent ABS-CBN to Purgatory, demanding that it pay a king’s ransom for what they believed the TV giant was guilty of – and then voted for Renewal With Conditions.

It is not only the 11,000 plus employees of ABS-CBN that are now denied their media freedom – it is all humans of the Philippines, 100 million plus, including the babies!

ANN of the News Media Association says (Author Not Named, undated, “Press Freedom: Why is it important?”):

Freedom of expression is a universal human right. It is (neither) the prerogative of the politician. Nor is it the privilege of the journalist. In their day-to-day work, journalists are simply exercising every citizen’s right to free speech.

Denying ABS-CBN Corp’s renewal of franchise is denying not only 11,000 Filipinos but all of us Filipinos the right to free speech. When digital media exercises its freedom, it is neither mechanical nor digital; it is in fact a human exercise of that right.

Let Freedom Ring: Reboot, not rubout!@517

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[1]https://www.stltoday.com/business/lawmakers-vote-to-close-down-philippines-largest-tv-network/article_bc7463bf-8679-55a0-8413-be3c48356852.html
[2]https://minujusth.unmissions.org/en/secretary-general-%E2%80%93-message-world-press-freedom-day-0
[3]http://creativethinkering.blogspot.com
[4]https://ithinkjournalism.blogspot.com

Rebooting PH Agriculture Is Rebooting PH Economy! – William Dar

The Department of Agriculture, DA, shares on Facebook the news: “DA Seeks Bigger 2021 Budget” (italics supplied):

Underscoring the crucial contribution of the agri-fishery sector in the Philippine economic recovery and national development efforts, the Department of Agriculture is seeking a bigger budget in 2021, totaling P284.4 billion (B), more than thrice its current budget of P79.9B.

Note that that news item says clearly:

“Underscoring the crucial contribution of the agri-fishery sector in the Philippine economic recovery and national development efforts…”

That is what the House Committee on Agriculture & Food Chair Wilfrido Mark Enverga missed and therefore almost dismissed the tripled DA budget, that which he said could just be a “wish list” for agri-fishery – meaning, the DA could be merely fishing!

I suspect House Chair Enverga has not been paying attention to the direct relationship betweenagriculture and economy. According to Indian agriculture, food and trade policy expert Devinder Sharma:

“Make no mistake: Agriculture alone has the potential to reboot the economy[1]_.”

I repeat my title:

Rebooting PH Agriculture Is Rebooting PH Economy!

(Reboot image from CDM Smith[2], PH flag & map from Victorified[3])

Secretary of Agriculture William Dar told the members of the House Committee on Agriculture and Food during the teleconference on 08 July 2020:

The agri-fishery sector, for the longest time, has been a ‘sleeping giant’ of the national economy, whose vast potentials remain largely untapped to achieve higher and sustainable growth. While the agriculture sector contributes about 10 percent (%) to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), it gets a measly share of total national appropriations, at three to five percent (every time) in the last 10 years.

From “measly share,” the proposed budget will bankroll existing (P61.8B) and new (P222.6B) DA programs and projects in 2021. Specifically, in 2021, the DA aims to further increase the production of major commodities, with respective proposed budgets for:

Rice – P56B;
Fisheries – P22.5B;
High-Value Crops – P13.7B;
Livestock & Poultry – .2B; and
Corn – P6.6B.

It also wishes to spend P130B for bankrolling locally funded projects, construction of farm-to-market roads, implementation of national soil health, and young farmers’ programs; P7.15B as counterpart for foreign-assisted projects such as the Philippine Rural Development Project; market development services – P3B; and organic agriculture – P960.4 million.

Mr Enverga must have thought that Mr Dar was asking for the sky! He probably did not know his wide-ranging “New Thinking For Agriculture.” He did not know Mr Dar can juggle millions of dollars and a hundred projects in his head as he in fact did when he was Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT 2000-2014, based in India. I know because I was working from home as international consulting writer for ICRISAT from 2007 to 2014.

Mr Enverga and his House Committee have never met a mind like Mr Dar’s – in any case, the Philippines has never met an economic and agricultural crises like what we have right now.

Yes: The Philippines needs a science mind and manager like Mr Dar!@517

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[1]https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/make-no-mistake-agriculture-alone-has-the-potential-to-reboot-the-economy
[2]https://cdmsmith.com/en/Careers/Reboot-Re-Entry-Program
[3]https://vectorified.com/philippines-icon

Doing Right With Rice – A Few Roman Catholic Lessons From Madagascar

If you look at this Rappler photo of a single farmer planting rice, it looks like it’s not a big deal and he doesn’t mind being alone in his work.

He should! He is doing it all wrong! All Filipino farmers are doing it all wrong!

I mean, transplanting rice. Unless you are using now the transplanter, you are going the wrong way of transplanting rice.

The man is transplanting rice wrongly, and he does not realize it. And probably neither do you!

It was only early this morning, Tuesday, 07 July 2020 Manila time when I Roman Catholic realized that we Filipinos have been planting rice all wrong since the beginning. Well, we inherited it from the Chinese, from whom we learned rice farming, plowing, etc. The Chinese are smart when they are, but not in this one.

So, here are My 5 Rice Lessons for you today, rich, poor, doctor, farmer:

1.     PS. 

2.     PS.

3.     PS.

4.     PS.

5.     PS!

(1)   Plant Singly.
Plant 1 seedling per hill, no more. This is a lesson from the System of Rice Intensification, SRI, compiled over the years by Roman Catholic Fr Henri de Laulanie SJ that he developed in Madagascar, where only 1 individual seedling is pushed  into a hill and no more. This is for maximum growth of the seedling, that is, in producing the necessary tillers for grains production. This is contrary to the usual practice of bunch transplanting, which results in too few tillers – so? Low yield.

(2)   Plant Squarely.
Plant each seedling equidistant from each other. Again, a lesson from the Catholic SRI. Use either 15 x 15 cm or 20 x 20 cm spacing. Each seedling in those squares will grow robust and to its maximum, because of the available wide space between competing roots from opposite hills. Robust seedlings will grow robust tillers – equals robust harvests! It is the Lesson of the Tillers that Filipino farmers have not learned  from the Catholics! The fastest way to plant squarely? Use a mechanical transplanter.

(3)   Plant Soon.
Plant when the seedling is still very young, 2 weeks old, another lesson from us Catholics. The usual Filipino farmer practice is to plant 1-month old seedlings. Too old! There is always a transplanting shock, and the young ones can take it without much trouble, recovering fast, unlike older seedlings. I wonder why Filipino farmers have not seen this with their own eyes?!

(4)   Plant Seed.
Plant, don’t transplant – plant the seeds directly, not raise them on a seedbed first and then transplant. No transplanting shock, no additional labor – the seed grows into a seedling, and the seedling grows into a plant without much ado. Why do rice seedlings grow yellow a few days after transplanting? That is transplanting shock – they are trying to recover their health.

(5)   Plant Smartly.
Plant using a seeder or a transplanter. That’s how to get square planting automatically. This is to avoid having to measure out all those squares in the field.

This is a Roman Catholic speaking!@517

San Jose City – Kalasag As Shield Against Fungi, Shield Against Poverty

Noel Ocampo Reyes shares on Facebook that a “Co-op Grows 800 Tons Onion For Food Chain, Makes Own Fungicide[1]!” Excited, yes. That’s Zac Sarian enthusiastically writing (29 June 2020, zacsarian.com) about members of the Kalasag Farmers Producers Cooperative preparing their own fungicide that they call Trichoderma – actually the name of the fungus – that they spray against all kinds of fungal enemies of hectares upon hectares of onion in San Jose City in Nueva Ecija. Zac tells us the Trichoderma initially used came from PhilRice in Nueva Ecija, free for the asking.

Before I forget. Zac mentions that Kalasag is growing onion “for a big fastfood company” – in 2012, already I knew that to be the Jollibee chain of companies. That’s one of the secrets of a good coop: Get a marketing contract with an institutional consumer and you are good for life!

Been there, done that 8 years ago. I visited that place early 2012 to interview and photograph the Kalasag members for the book I was producing – writing, photographing, desktop publishing – to help celebrate the Silver Anniversary of the Agricultural Credit & Policy Council, ACPC (which is under the Department of Agriculture), when Jovita Corpuz  was Executive Director – the book cover I designed you can see inset above, with Kalasag farmers on their fields harvesting. Note that Frank H is showing white onions while Zac Sarian is showing red onions. Both Ilocanos, we have quite different “noses for news” – Frank goes for the producers while Zac goes for the product.

The ACPC book I produced in 2012 titled The Filipino Farmer Is Bankable and subtitled Celebrating 25 Years Of The ACPC, mainly featured the operations of successful coops. 8 years later, here I am proselytizing for more multipurpose coops that are more business-like and which I refer to as Super Coops.

Yes, I am emphasizing more producers rather than products. I am a board member of the Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative in my hometown Asingan in Pangasinan, and I know that such types of coop hold much promise as farmers’ friends in terms of helping them rise from poverty and staying up there! Nagkaisa is not yet my ideal Super Coop – while Kalasag of San Jose City by all means already is a Super Coop, able and equipped to grow, process, store, transport and market the onions for members. (There are 45 members, according to NRT 2011[2].)  In 2012, I learned each Kalasag farmer earned at least P1 million/ha!

That’s what a Super Coop is for: Helping members cultivate business-mindedness so that they can rise from their poor stations in life to one of prosperity – whether they go for white or red onion, whether they use a natural product as fungicide or not. It’s the cooperative working as one force for all members, not just for a few investors.

We must grow tons & tons of produce – simultaneously, we must cultivate a million farmers via Super Coops like Kalasag who will help them escape from poverty, improve their lives, and sustain themselves!@517

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[1]https://zacsarian.com/co-op-grows-800-tons-onion-for-food-chain-makes-own-fungicide/?fbclid=IwAR1cPMwFlrAj-
qoB3dkrTUFDYSaEDSUTc2HX6y_j4Sq5lMAW0sMMpMuvRw
[2]https://www.slideshare.net/MABSIV/bridging-farmers-to-the-jollibee-value-chain-program

On Digital Knowledge & PH Agriculture – I Love You, Peter Wallace!

On Facebook, PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar shares “Peter Wallace, noted columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.net, on agriculture” as saying:

Everything we do today is digitized. So I consider the Department of Information and Communication Technology as with the Department of Agriculture, the most important departments in the government today.

100% I agree as an intense blogger of 13 years and a professional agriculturist!

Inset is my Windows 10collage, with Mr Dar at the bottom right, dated 2018. As an indefatigable blogger, I began digitizing data & information in practical agriculture for the world earnestly in January 2007 when he hired me as international consulting writer of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, when he started his 8^thyear as Director General of ICRISAT, which was/is based in India. I began my aggie science digitization with the blog iCRiSAT Watch.

I am extremely glad Mr Wallace appreciates digitization of knowledge, especially agriculture. The DICT and the DA should make a formidable team in bringing digital knowledge anywhere in the Philippines anytime under any circumstances!

Mr Wallace wants PH agriculture to be “preeminent,” saying that “The production of food efficiently and cheaply must be of highest priority.” He says No to agrarian reform – and so do I, son of a farmer. He points out to problems in production and infrastructure.

And then about the men in the middle:

There’s also the problem of too many middlemen doing little but capturing the bulk of the profits because the logistics is not there.

Confidently, Mr Wallace says, “The Philippines should not only be supplying all the food Filipinos need, but also be a major supplier to the world.” But right now it has to buy rice when it has to augment the supply. He says, “One thing the Duterte administration has done that deserves high credit is the freedom to buy rice at competitive prices.” That reminds me of Mr Dar saving PH some P2.2 billion by publicly bidding fertilizer importation (see my essay, “Marlen V Ronquillo – I Agree With You, “In A Prostrate Sector, Vileness Does Not Rest[1],” 29 June 2020, THiNK Journalism, Digital). Mr Ronquillo was questioning the bidding and I was questioning his questioning!

#5, Information Technology – Mr Wallace says:

Paper has to go as an electronic world takes over. The preeminence the Philippines has attained with call centers can be expanded into more sophisticated services and production of the hardware, and make the country a leader as we have the skills.

And yes, we Filipinos have the digital minds! Please note my blog’s name is THiNK Journalism, Digital. Mr Dar himself has his own 17-year old digital idea: Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture – and I have written a digital book to implement it.

So, when finally we can convince the President and Congress to provide the funds to digitize Philippine agriculture from soil to spoon:

I at 79 will surely be there:
(1) helping transform technical language to popular, and
(2) blogging with all my heart!@517

 

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[1]https://ithinkjournalism.blogspot.com/2020/06/marlen-v-ronquillo-i-agree-with-you-in.html