Xavier Mindanao Making Microorganisms Man’s Allies In Agriculture, Not Adversaries

When I was a teenager, many years before I went to study at UP Los Baños in 1959, in our ricefield I used to drench the broadleaved weeds with 2,4-D until the leaves were dripping wet “to make sure they die!" I did not know the chemical would somehow find its way into other plants, including the rice my father was growing. Bad for those weeds, bad for the Hilarios.

That was about 1957. Today, 64 years later, Filipino farmers are still spraying chemicals referred to as pesticides: such as against weeds (weedicides) and against fungi (fungicides). Sooner, not later, this will change. I have high hopes for such, as I read the news item “DOST Awards P1M Grant To Xavier University For Microorganism Research” by Joahna Lei Casilao (29 October 2021, GMA News):

The Department of Science & Technology (DoST) Region 10 has awarded a P1 million grant to Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City for its research project on the use of microbial cocktails as an alternative to pesticides.

Personally, I am glad for Xavier U because I know it as an excellent University – I taught for a year 1968-1969 at its College of Agriculture (XUCA) on Horticulture and injected organic principles in my lectures without informing beforehand XUCA Dean Fr William Masterson, SJ – later, he must have known but did not object in any manner. Indeed, the Jesuits must know what’s good for the soul– and the soil!

One of my XUCA students, Nicanor“Nicky” Perlas, improving on organic agriculture, won the Right Livelihood Award by practicing biodynamic agriculture.

Both organic and biodynamic agriculture work with compost, which is what the DoST-XUCA project will additionally work with: (1) microbial cocktails as an alternative to pesticides, and (2) microbial cocktails to degrade the organic materials into rich organic fertilizer.

The DoST-XUCA project calls for concocting (1) microbial pesticides as well as (2) what I shall refer to here as “compost on demand” – the research results will show how fast the microbial cocktails will degrade organic materials into compost that can be applied as fertilizer. The DoST says, “The formulated microbial cocktails will be studied for their characteristics as biodegradation-enhancers for compostable wastes.”

Now then, I’m thinking of those XUCA aggie researchers going beyond preparing microbial cocktails for composting of biodegradable matter – and apply the cocktails on the field itself to create an instant microbe-induced organic mulch all over the field!

That step I am adding to what I previously described as “Lazy Juan Farming” (see my 28 October 2021 essay, “Fertilizer Subsidy For PH Agriculture Considered. How About Lazy Juan Farming? No Joke!” Communication For Development, Blogspot.com). To render Lazy Juan Farming more powerful without much additional human labor, after the shallow rotavation as I describe it, spray the microbial cocktails on the whole field – and that will hasten the degradation of the surface mulch into organic fertilizer.

How about it, XUCA researchers? Apply your microbes on my Lazy Juan mulch, and your P1 million research grant will give farmers in return a hundredfold!@517

digCOOPERATIVES: Digitalized Cooperatives Institutionalizing Village Economies Of Scale

In agriculture for the whole Philippines, how can you mix being field-smart, farmer-smart, climate-smart and pocket-smart all at the same time?

As an agriculturist and a creative warrior writer, I believe I have come up with an excellent idea to bring PH Agriculture from Worry to Wealth. I hereby propose to the Department of Agriculture (DA) this Program:

digCOOPERATIVES: Digitalized Cooperatives Engaged In Regenerative Agriculture Towards Institutionalizing Village Economies Of Scale.
(hearts-in-sync image[1] from Pinterest)

My blog’s slogan applies here: “It takes a village to make a nation!”

Cooperatives
Coops are excellent instruments by which farmers can make loans anytime and pay the minimum.

Personally, I know cooperatives. On 05-08-2017, I was elected to the Board of Directors (BOD) of the Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative (in above image, see “F. Hilario” under “Newly Elected BODs”). Nagkaisa is in Asingan, Pangasinan, my hometown.

An agency under the DA, the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) can channel funds in the millions of pesos to cooperatives all over the country for digCOOPERATIVES.

Regenerative Agriculture (RA)

To ensure that agriculture can become field-smart, farmer-smart, climate-smart and pocket-smart for every village, regenerative agriculture will be practiced; this will also ensure economies of scale.

RA works with the laws of Mother Nature and the economic laws of Homo sapiens. The farmer restores naturally what his crops and animals obtain from the field: fertility & water, and his agriculture keeps giving back a hundredfold!

Economies of Scale

The farmers do not practice economies of scale of anything – they sow too much seeds; they over-plant; they buy expensive fertilizers and pesticides; they waste their produce by drying carelessly; they sell individually, not in groups.

My Experience With Farmers

As a farmer’s son in Asingan, Pangasinan; as a student going after his BS Agriculture major in Ag Edu at the UP College of Agriculture (now UP Los Baños), graduating in 1965; as a field consultant for the Agrarian Reform Community Connectivity and Economic Services (ARCCESS) extension project of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in 2017 under UPLB Professor Rene Rafael C Espino as Team Leader – I have seen the limits of the thinking of farmers. ARCCESS was slow-moving, being not digital. And no, DAR did not have working cooperatives, only associations.

Actually, cooperatives and regenerative agriculture are already designed for economies of scale – I just put them together in a new way to come up with an exciting intellectual product that is at the same time clearly operationable.

How About Budget?

ANN has this news, “DA Seeks P40-B Additional Budget[2]”(Author Not Named, 25 October 2021, Manila Times), the DA seeking those additional billions “for next year to jumpstart and unleash the potential of the agriculture sector as the country recovers from the devastation of the pandemic.” Secretary of Agriculture William Dar says, “We can do a lot (more with more projects and programs) if the budget is higher. If they add another P40 billion, we will be more than happy.”

With Program digCOOPERATIVES, I’m sure millions of Filipino farmers will be more than happy!@517

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[1]https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/373658100318472834/

[2]https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/10/25/news/national/da-seeks-p40-b-additional-budget/1819642?fbclid=IwAR1so5yjReFw4UBXOPd4voQg99ULfBkOdbVDfcBQaVZWP1FkJmvj2JETGs4

Teacher & Writer, Here I Am Reinventing Teaching Twice, Including In Agriculture!

Must be mind-shaking. Yes, I brainstormed 2 new educational terms – Critical teaching and Creative teaching – early this morning Thursday, 04 November 2021. Now, world universities can realize inseparable double roles in teaching taking advantage of the Internet. This is a Filipino agriculturist speaking, UP '65, self-taught critical teacher and creative teacher.
(self-thinking photograph with Lumix FZ100 camera 17-08-17 at 7 AM)

My surprising brainstorming results I now call The Two Thinkings were stimulated by reading former PhilRice Executive Director Eufemio Rasco’s Facebook sharing of Fr Ranhilio Callangan Aquino’s opinion piece,“The Apostolate Of Academics And Professors[1]” (03 November 2021, Manila Times).
(Above, Fr  Aquino’s Facebook image)

I find the whole premise of Fr Aquino’s essay in his very firstparagraph with these words:

It is time for professors and academics to sally forth from their classrooms and from libraries to engage in the apostolate of restoring rationality to political discourse in our country.

Googling, I learn that Roman Catholic Fr Aquino is currently Dean of San Beda Graduate School of Law. Which points to me either-or-both contradiction or conjunction: Creative Thinking (belief in the existence of God is beyond instruction) with Critical Thinking (insistence in the logic and laws of men is beyond intuition).

I repeat Fr Aquino’s injunction: “It is time… to engage in the apostolate of restoring rationality to political discourse.” Rationality, note: Fr Aquino is here invoking critical thinking only, and excluding creative thinking.

I do not blame him. I blame the university from where he graduated – I also blame my alma mater, the University of the Philippines Los Baños for teaching only critical thinking – or scientific thinking, whatever.

Fr Aquino insists, “Professors and academics must heed the clarion call to return rationality to political discourse.” And I insist that that is only half of the equation, Father; political discourse must cover not only the rational but outside the rational – the intuitive, gut feel, visceral, subconscious – from where the creative juice flows.

Father, the problem with political discourse today is that it is all from the outer voice and none from the inner voice!

Fr Aquino says, “Scholars… should now re-channel their drive into that moral fortitude that allows them to be defenders of rationality in the face of its alarming decadence.” Excuse me Father, but we now must invoke intuition with rationality; rationality is only half, and not even the better half of the political equation.

Creative-thinking Fr Aquino also says:

Much closer to home, academics should train their sights on the dismal state of education in the Philippines.

And our experience with alternative delivery systems while Covid forced us indoors should serve us in good stead… that there are sites of delivery besides the classroom, and other modes of instruction besides the boring narration of teachers and the peroration of professors hopelessly in love with their own voices.

“There are sites of delivery besides the classroom” – thank God for the information superhighway! I say: Educators should now take advantage of digital power pursuing both critical and creative teachings.@517

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[1]https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/11/03/opinion/columns/the-apostolate-of-academics-and-professors/1820721?fbclid=IwAR0XsixSaDABlfGlMX13x_iBIaJ8rkWvEyyuAGSRBSDgSvCarN2vbc0rync

BBM, Isko, Leni, Manny & Ping Can Learn About Visioning From Ilocano William!

Mid-morning today, Wednesday, 03 November 2021, I was trying to get some sleep when I suddenly felt wide-awake with an unprecedented, unpresidential idea: Ideal candidate for President of my beloved Philippines is not a candidate!
(original image above from my previous essay, “Polls, Pulse, False: Presidency Is Not Popularity, It’s Leadership[1]” ComDev).

No Sir, no Ma’am! Not a single one of the front-running 5 presidential candidates (above) has an imposing, impossible idea about how to bring these islands from the 20^thto the 22^nd century – not Bongbong Marcos, not Isko Moreno, not Leni Robredo, not Manny Pacquiao, not Ping Lacson.

We should all be voting for someone to become our President who has exhibited Leadership with a Vision, Mission, and Strategy!

In late 2006, I came to know my distinguished non-presidential candidate Ilocano, now-Secretary of Agriculture William Dollente Dar, when already he had been Director General of the India-based International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) for 7 years. From among 15 international agricultural research centers under the aegis of the CGIAR:

Within those busy years, Mr Dar’s Vision of “Science with a human face” brought up ICRISAT from dead last to #1.

Now then, back to our presidential candidates – who of them has a Vision for our old beloved Philippines? None that I have read! They should all learn from this non-candidate about Visioning, Missioning, Strategizing.

No excuses! Even before President Rodrigo Roa Duterte appointed him Secretary of Agriculture, Mr Dar had already brought out in his Manila Times column his “New Thinking About Agriculture.” The profile on the website of the Department of Agriculture (DA) says of him:

… William Dollente Dar is a man fated to do great things. History does repeat itself for this man from Sta Maria, Ilocos Sur, as he was called again to serve government as the Secretary of Agriculture on 05 August 2019, under the administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. He first served the Department of Agriculture (DA) from July 1998 to May 1999 under President Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

Upon his assumption to office, Dar introduced the “New Thinking for Agriculture” which is anchored on the vision: “A food-secure Philippines with prosperous farmers and fisherfolk.” The vision has over-arching twin goals of increasing productivity and making farmers and fishers prosperous or his term’s battlecry, “Masaganang Ani at Mataas na Kita”.

That Vision can be summarized in Mr Dar’s own words: “Masaganang Ani at Mataas na Kita.” My translation: “Bountiful Harvest & Bounteous Income.” Input to Output, Outcome to Income.

Well, Mr Dar is another Ilocano original. In the history of heads of state of the Philippines, another Ilocano and only Ferdinand Edralin Marcoscame up with a Vision: “This nation shall be great again!” Vision is paramount. Proverbs 29:18: “Without Vision, the People Perish.”

We need a visionary of a President to bring us from Want to Wealth. Now then, who among the presidential candidates has that Vision; do you see? We need a wo/man with a Vision – where is s/he?!@517

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[1]https://communicationfordevelopmentphcomdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/polls-pulse-false-presidency-is-not.html

Philippine Agricultural Journalists – An Organic Challenge From Frank A Hilario

Journalists, why not celebrate November as the starting month dedicating yourselves to spreading on Earth the good you can do via Organic Agriculture? Then you will deserve all the annual Binhi Awards in the world!
(awards image[1] from BusinessMirror, “organic” image[2] from Dreamstime)

Extra-excited today, Tuesday, 02 November 2021, learning that November was declared 6 years ago, 2015, by President Benigno Aquino Jr as “Organic Agriculture Month” via Presidential Proclamation 1030. Since reading about trash farming about 55 years ago, in the books of Edward H Faulkner, Plowman’s Folly(1943) and Soil Development (1952), I have been convinced that organic agriculture or organic farming (either of which is the generic term), is both farmer-smart and field-smart, or cultivator-smart and climate-smart.

For your information, I am a founding member of the Philippine Agricultural Journalists (PAJ). I was the one who came up with the concept & name of the PAJ’s Binhi Awards almost 43 years ago – while I began founding and being Editor In Chief of 3 publications of the Forest Research Institute (FORI): FORI’s monthly Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly popular magazine Habitat.

And yes, once a writer, always a writer – with the qualification that I was once a mechanical writer (typewriter user) and now a digital writer (laptop user).

Now then, as a wholehearted warrior writer for agriculture in the last 46 years, a virtual village voice in the last 21 years, I have decided to dedicate the rest of my life – turned 81 on 17-09-2021, thank God – to mentoring willing members of the PAJ as well as volunteers from outside the group, probably from the state colleges & universities (SCUs) – to write to communicate knowledge in modern agriculture, specifically organic farming. I call this journalism project Appropriate Manuscripts to Mobilize Organic Knowledge in Agriculture (AMMOKA).

Here’s “Usapang Sakahan” (Farm Talks): With the leaders of the PAJ signing after much consultation, we will submit a full-pledged proposal to San Miguel Corporation, or another patron, to support Project AMMOKA for P5 Million for the following expenses: 50 laptops (for journalists-volunteers being mentored, and aggie knowledge gatherers in SCUs), 50 portable Internet routers, 50 printers, 50 digital cameras; 5 computer programmers for building user-friendly digital AMMOKA Knowledge Bank (Englishfirst, Tagalog later); mentoring expenses; printing copies of monthly magazine AMMOKA (free to PAJ members and sold to the public), and project management & virtual office costs.

Face-to-face meetings will be welcome but not necessary. I will mentor the journalists-volunteers anywhere they are anytime virtually.

For those who do not know Frank A Hilario: I am a UP Los Baños graduate, self-taught digital writer. Since 2000 an implausible indefatigable blogger, here’s a short “About Me” – https://communicationfordevelopmentphcomdev.blogspot.com.

Finally, I am enjoining the PAJ to see to it that its members, and outside volunteers, conduct themselves as conscientious communicators of knowledge in organic agriculture. Particularly, I note, according to its website:

PAJ has evolved from a social club mainly for the welfare of its members into an organization now imbued with social goals and responsibilities.

Attaboys, PAJ!@517

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[1]https://businessmirror.com.ph/2018/03/26/businessmirror-sweeps-paj-smc-binhi-awards/

[2]https://www.dreamstime.com/photos-images/organic-farming.html

Bounty Country Magazine, I Propose – Growing Lives, Glowing Loves!

Go, Grow, Glow! Lives to Grow: people, plants, animals. Loves to Glow: families, villages, islands, country.

Our reality: I have been reading about the business success of Chooks-To-Go oven-roasted chicken and the Good Samaritan ways of Ronald Mascariñas, President & General Manager of Bounty Agro Ventures Inc (BAVI), the knowledgeable producer of Chooks.

My fantasy: BAVI coming out with Bounty Country, a revolutionary monthly magazine.All-Digital – with me as all-virtual Editor in Chief. Selling point? No Agrochemicals Ever (NAE), 100% Organic Farming. Ultimate targets: 10 million Filipino farmers.

Above: My glowing photograph taken 03 December 2016 early evening, 06:18 PM, the Chooks-to-Go store fronting the plaza of my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan in Central Luzon, Philippines. It’s been there for 5 years already – we Asinganians know what’s healthy chicken for us!

With the almost-unbelievable financial success of Chooks-to-Go organic chickens, already Mr Chooks personally knows that organic farming is doubly healthy:

(1)   Healthy for bodies.

(2)   Healthy for bank accounts.

I call him Mr Chooks to remind us that it was he who grew The Chicken That Could where there was none before – clucking over all those chickens from Jollibee, McDonald, Magnolia, Mang Inasal, and above all the chicken that built a house: Max’s!

Success must build success. With its organic origin, Chooks can now more convincingly lead the Philippines in the widespread adoption of organic agriculture. And it will be sweet.

Mr Chooks says on Facebook, “We take pride as the only company in the country who is able to produce ‘No Antibiotics Ever’ (NAE) chicken on a commercial scale.” The other chickens are grown with antibiotics designed to make them grow faster than natural – so it’s mostly quantity, not quality!

On the inset image above, behind Mr Chooks, it says in Tagalog, “Sarap kahit walang sauce” (My free translation: “Saucy even without sauce.”) Mr Mascariñas describes the Chooks meat as “a bit sweet, like a sweet ham” (14 March 2013, Apisit Buranakanonda, “Philippines’ Chooks To Go Is A Bounty Success Story[1],” Poultry World, where the image comes from).

Mr Buranakanonda says, “After just five years in business, Chooks-to-Go has climbed to the number one spot in the Philippines’ roast chicken market.” I say it’s taste: sweeter than sweet, than the others; it’s fact: healthier than the others.

Ces Dimalanta says Mr Chooks says (24 April 2018, “On Healthier Choices: Bounty Agro Brings All-Natural Antibiotic-Free Chickens To The Market[2],” Manila Millennial):

As part of our commitment to nurture the health of the nation, we are continuously finding ways to innovate and offer only the safest chicken choices. The launch of NAE in the country is one of the steps that we are taking towards giving healthy and quality food choices at affordable prices to Filipinos.

About Frank A Hilario? UP Los Baños graduate, self-taught digital writer. Turned 81 Sept 17; since 2000, an unbelievable indefatigable blogger – here’s a short “About Me” – https://communicationfordevelopmentphcomdev.blogspot.com.

The Bounty Country Magazine slogan is: “Healthy Foods For Thought.” Yes Sir, Mr Chooks. My NAE is healthy food for your thoughts!@517

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[1]https://www.poultryworld.net/Home/General/2013/3/Philippines-Chooks-to-Go-is-a-Bounty-success-story-1195658W/

[2]https://manilamillennial.com/2018/04/24/bounty-agro/

“Rappler’s Village” – A Virtual Magazine For Village Journalism (My Unsolicited Proposal)

The proposed magazine’s slogan is “Yes, we can do it!” 5 words reflecting emphasis on positivity (Yes), collective (we), possibility (can), need to act (do), and achieve (it). “We” includes those people solicitous of villagers rising from poverty!

To Maria Ressa, first Filipina awardee of Nobel Peace Prize (2021) for journalism: Follow-up to my earlier essay [31 October 2021, “Praise Maria Ressa, Raise Rappler To A Higher Form: Village Journalism![1]” Communication For Development (ComDev)], intimating what I now detail as a proposal.
(images: farmer-tractor on FAH’s monitor 30-07-2016; tablet[2] from Shutterstock 2021)

Hereby, I propose that Rappler publish a virtual magazine, Rappler’s Village, to communicate knowledge on relevant aspects of agriculture and fisheries to farmers and fishers. Budget coming from?  Millions in funding attracted by Nobel Peace Prize – USAID dollars, PH Department of Agriculture pesos!

Let me introduce myself, I a full-blooded Ilocano (FBI), born in Asingan, Pangasinan, wide-awake hometown of brother-sister President Fidel Valdez Ramos and Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani. Our FBI Asingan town has also contributed Narciso Ramos, Secretary of Foreign Affairs; Hermogenes Esperon Jr, AFP Chief of Staff; Liza Soberano and Jhong Hilario, artists. See? My FBI hometown has been cultivating doers-achievers.

For the Rappler virtual magazine, whatever its name will be, I offer my creative writing & publishing powers privately cultivated and publicly seen starting in 1975.

First, in 1965, I graduated from UPLB with 2.36 weighted average (a few Faileds counted in).

At 35, I became founding Editor In Chief of the Forest Research Institute (FORI) publications: FORI’s monthly Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly popular magazine Habitat.

At 45, encouraging myself, I began learning digital writing, editing, layouting, desktop publishing starting Innocents Day, 1985, initiated with WordStar Version 1 by a lady (sorry I forgot the name) at the office of Director Elpidio L Rosarioof the Farming Systems & Soil Resources Institute (FSSRI), UPLB.At FSSRI, I had previously typed, edited and produced the book Focus On The Small Farmer, years before digital printing came along.

At 61, at Los Baños, I became the one-man-band Desktop Publisher-Editor In Chief of the quarterly Philippine Journal of Crop Science – virtually 8 years.  

At 67, I became an international consulting writer for India-based ICRISAT, work from home 2007-2014. ICRISAT published 7 books of mine.

At 72, I became the historical first and so far the only “Outstanding Alumnus for Creative Writing” in the entire UP System!

Since 2000, I have been an unstoppable blogger – here is a short “About Me” – https://communicationfordevelopmentphcomdev.blogspot.com.

Turning 81 on 17 Sept 2021, having authored and desktop-published many publications, if challenged, I can digitally produce a monthly40-page magazine by myself, from writing to digital copy, print-on-demand!

(For all that, let me not forget to thank God for His continuing graces.)

Writing remains a complicated proposition. Exactly! I can help Rappler tremendously; I will train-assist virtually and simultaneously a hundred-and-one journalists on manyagriculture & related subjects – with insistence-persistence on Village Journalism: You are writing for the village people, people!@517

[1]https://communicationfordevelopmentphcomdev.blogspot.com/2021/10/praise-maria-ressa-raise-rappler-to.html


[2]https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hong-kong-china-august-7-2011-280100582