Eufemio Rasco’s Facebook sharing very early this morning, Sunday, 29 March 2020:
“If all of us must stay home, we should grow our own food! Mahirap ba imemorize yan?”
The last part: A Filipino joke: “Is that difficult to memorize?” Actually, it is saying, “That’s not difficult to remember, you…!” No insults intended, I hope.
The first part: That is a logical thing to think. However, these are not rational times. So, my Facebook comment was this:
hindi lang mahirap, hindi puede - wala kami ni 1 square foot of earth to plant. don't tell me to plant on pots - wala ring space. you don't know how it is to be land-poor.
(It’s not only difficult, it’s impossible – we don’t even have 1 square foot of earth to plant. don’t tell me to plant on pots – still no space.)
“Grow your own food” (image from Grow Your Own Food, Facebook[1]). Not to be simply ignored, Mr Rasco is a former Executive Director of PhilRice. After an hour or two thinking about this, I remembered my standing agricultural challenge that I have blogged about, since last year or the year before. I will again write about it, this time challenging Mr Rasco to sponsor it financially, and calling it now:
H Farming:
Horticulture Helping Homes Harvest High in Farming
Horticulture Helping Homes Harvest High in Farming
H Farming is now my challenge to Mr Rasco:
If you have at least 2 ha of riceland, or if you know someone who is willing to turn his property into a project for the hungry during the lockdown, anywhere in Pangasinan, Bulacan, Batangas or Laguna, and pay for the inputs, I will be Project Leader; I will visit infrequently and need help just for food and accommodation. Now, the project description:
Land: 2 ha, Irrigation not necessary.
Planting materials: rice seeds, moringa cuttings, vegetable seeds.
Equipment (hired): hand tractor with rotavator blades.
H Farming Area 1:
1 ha, rice only, planted using the technique called System of Rice Intensification, with 20 cm x 20 cm distance of planting single seedlings.
1 ha, rice only, planted using the technique called System of Rice Intensification, with 20 cm x 20 cm distance of planting single seedlings.
H Farming Area 2:
1 ha, multiple cropping; planted to rice and vegetables, plus trees such as coconut, santol, coffee, cacao, mango. No fertilizer, chemical or organic – to enrich the soil, immediately and naturally, I will have the area “plowed” using a hand tractor, making sure that not the farmer’s choice disc blades (round) are used but Frank’s Choice of rotavator blades (L-shaped). Frank’s Choice is backed by a 50-year experience with my brother-in-law Inso in Asingan, Pangasinan, whom I taught how to use the rotavator so that it will cut the soil and weeds together in small pieces, mixing them as it rolls along the field, thereby laying a surface mulch all over the place. It is the surface mulch that begins immediately to turn into true organic fertilizer to grow healthy crops.
1 ha, multiple cropping; planted to rice and vegetables, plus trees such as coconut, santol, coffee, cacao, mango. No fertilizer, chemical or organic – to enrich the soil, immediately and naturally, I will have the area “plowed” using a hand tractor, making sure that not the farmer’s choice disc blades (round) are used but Frank’s Choice of rotavator blades (L-shaped). Frank’s Choice is backed by a 50-year experience with my brother-in-law Inso in Asingan, Pangasinan, whom I taught how to use the rotavator so that it will cut the soil and weeds together in small pieces, mixing them as it rolls along the field, thereby laying a surface mulch all over the place. It is the surface mulch that begins immediately to turn into true organic fertilizer to grow healthy crops.
Mr Rasco, or anyone else, if you agree to the above, my battle cry “LetMyPeopleGo” now has a new meaning: “Release my people from the bondage of chemical agriculture!”@517
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