Forewarned PH Congress, Forearmed DA: To Meet Huge Challenges In 2022, DA Chief William Dar Seeks P12 B Higher Budget

I author know multiple & interconnected problems of Filipino farming families – and that they need all the help they can get. A farmer’s son, wide reader since 1957, an agriculturist (UPLB '65), and open-eyed self-taught blogger since 2000  – I am aware how can PH agriculture not only survive but thrive!

“We are entering a ‘New World’ – the global scale of the ‘new normal’ as an offshoot of the Covid-19 pandemic – wherein every country in the world is coping with huge challenges.” ANN says those are exact words from PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar in his common letter to Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco requesting an additional P12 Billion to next year’s DA budget (Author Not Named, 02 Dec 2021, “DA Requests P12 B More, On Top Of Proposed 2022 Budget, To Address Food, Agri Global Challenges[1],” DA.gov.ph). The P12 B is on top of the already-requested budget of P95 B for 2022.
(budget image[2] from Asian Telegraph)

“(The huge challenges) include the lingering and mutating Covid-19 pandemic, increasing prices of petrol, fertilizers and feeds, climate change, population dynamics, urbanization and aging farmers, and preventing entry of transboundary animal and plant diseases,” Sec Dar wrote Senate President Tito Sotto and House Speaker Allan Velasco.

Let me enumerate the agricultural woes as Sec Dar stated them (excluding the pandemic):

(1)   Increasing prices of fuel, fertilizers & feeds

(2)   Climate change

(3)   Population dynamics

(4)   Urbanization & aging farmers

(5)   Entry of transboundary diseases of crops cultivated and animals raised.

I note that the more pressing problems for agriculture are #1 (increasing prices of inputs), #2 (climate change), and #5 (transboundary diseases of crops & animals). #1 decreases farmer earnings; #2 decreases farmer yields (and sometimes destroys whole harvests); and #5 sometimes decimates whole herds in an entire village or group of villages.

“These global challenges will continue to impact adversely on food production, distribution, and consumption next year and beyond,” Sec Dar said. “Hence, in the case of the Philippines and we at the Department of Agriculture, there is a felt need for bigger budgetary support.”

The additional DA budget has been requested, Sec Dar said, because “the country is in need of a ‘lifeline’ to sustain its productivity and meet its food security needs.”

Food security is always a prime national concern.

From the P12 B requested, P8.9 B is allotted as fertilizer subsidy, P2 B to the corn program; and P1.1 B to urban agriculture.

“We believe that there is an urgency for the government to support our farmers in dealing with these global and local challenges,” Sec Dar said. Take fertilizers. “The increase in prices of inorganic fertilizers due to the declining global supply has been alarming,” he said. “Big countries and producers have stocked up most of the fertilizer supply to ensure their local requirements for crop production and food security.”

If we do not assist our farmers who produce our food, who will?@517

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[1]https://www.da.gov.ph/da-requests-p12-b-more-on-top-of-proposed-2022-budget-to-address-food-agri-global-challenges/?fbclid=IwAR3W4gvvFzh6XFRIZSHOZ1w8enf6vu6pWgHeErK2-X7ZaeJmRP3AmzniwYQ

[2]https://www.theasiantelegraph.net/budget-2021-22-and-agriculture-sector/

"Think Richer!" My Slogan In My Pursuit Of Regenerative Agriculture For PH

"Think Richer!” I now have a slogan for Regenerative Agriculture (RegenA) according to how I understand it!

Truth be told, I just submitted an hour or so ago a shorter version of that – “Think Rich!” – as a slogan for the Sustainable Development Movement initiated by forester June AV Revilla on Facebook. Then, lying on bed this early evening, I just had an epiphany: That slogan fits exactly regenA if I wanted to explore and explain it more and more! I was going to withdraw my proposed slogan because I have a better use for it. Then I just had another epiphany: “Think Richer!” I love that even more.

Also today, Wednesday, 01 Dec 2021, I created a new blog, Communication For Village Development 21 (to visit, click this link: CoVID21). This is actually an upgrading of my 3-year old blog “Communication for Development (ComDev),” the name of the concept dating back to December 1980 as published in the quarterly popular magazine Habitat of the Forest Research Institute, of which I was the Editor In Chief. ComDev was intentionally a reverse name for “Development Communication” (DevCom), the concept of UPLB Professor Nora Quebral, which neither proposed nor produced articles clearly advocating agricultural development.

The new and longer name of my blog makes clear the over-all goal of my blogging: village development. The slogan is the same: “It takes a viral village to develop a country!”

In the image above, with a strong ray of sun striking the water, the arms are those of my wife Amparo at the Amancio Farm & Hotel in Cordon, Isabela when she, I and our youngest daughter Graciela visited the 60-ha hilly farm 3^rd week of June 2018, courtesy of the owner-manager, Noemi Liangco.

Now that I look at my lake-farm image above again (taken 21-06-2018), I see it as a beautiful place that was already trying to practice regenerative agriculture without realizing it! The term was coined and the concept was explained by Robert Rodale in 1983 (Ken E Giller et al, “Regenerative Agriculture: An Agronomic Perspective[1],” Outlook In Agriculture 50:1):

Robert Rodale (1983) defined Regenerative Agriculture as “one that, at increasing levels of productivity, increases our land and soil biological production base. It has a high level of built-in economic and biological stability. It has minimal to no impact on the environment beyond the farm or field boundaries. It produces foodstuffs free from biocides. It provides for the productive contribution of increasingly large numbers of people during a transition to minimal reliance on non-renewable resources.

Back to the image above: I realize today that Ms Noemi has somehow been practicing the beginnings of regenerative agriculture without realizing it – I see that only now, 3 years later. With giant machines, among other land efforts she had a few holes dug that each now looks like a lake and provides not only irrigation to the crops grown but also fish raised in rainwater-fed ponds, plural.

She was into organic agriculture, and used no chemicals. Good beginnings for regenerative agriculture.@517

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[1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0030727021998063

Double The Aggie Budget, Leni Robredo Promises. What About PH Visionary Leadership?

Will doubling the 2021 budget for 2022 be good for PH Agriculture? Good, but not good enough!

I am reading Mara Cepeda’s Rappler news report, “Robredo To Give At Least P116 Billion For Agriculture If She Wins In 2022[1]” (29 Nov 2021):

If Vice President Leni Robredo becomes the next Philippine President, she plans to allot at least P116 billion for agriculture on her first year, more than double… what President Rodrigo Duterte’s government gave the pandemic-hit sector in 2021.

Repeat: “More than double” what PRRD has given to Agriculture this year. Very Good! I say. But not good enough, as I will explain in a little while.

To be fair, Leni does point out that the Department of Agriculture (DA) had requested a total budget of P284.4 Billion for 2021; but what was approved was only P68.6 Billion, not even half of the request. I say our legislators do notgive much value to PH Agriculture, while our Vice President is playing her guts, coming from the boondocks, which she terms “laylayan ng lipunan” (fringes of society). She sympathizes; she empathizes.

Leni’s Big Budget for DA will go into “funding more climate-resilient crops that farmers can (grow) in their provinces.” As an agriculturist and a warrior writer & blogger for climate change in the last 21 years, I say focusing on “climate-resilient crops” is a very intelligent choice. I must say Leni has in her team a good mind or two thinking agriculture for development!

Now then, she talks about the distribution of that budget (from hereon, I am translating her freely):

When we say it’s justified, where are the opportunities? Which ones are the most resilient subsectors of agriculture? Where there are those opportunities, we should give more, we must give bigger allotments.

Now she’s talking much sense! “Where are the opportunities?” Naturally, she equates the opportunities with the climate-change resilient sectors of Agriculture. What did school dropout-turned-billionaire-Virgin-Group-owner British Richard Branson say about solving problems? “Don't See Obstacles, See Opportunities[2].”

We have not been giving more focus to budgeting for the more climate-resilient crops, as far as agriculture is concerned. Because we are always taking into consideration the per-province basis, what are the climate conditions there? What are the types of soils there? What should be the budget for the more climate-resilient crops, we must look into that.

Ms Mara says, “The Vice President then pointed out the need to fund more climate-friendly crops (that) farmers can harvest (more from), depending on conditions in their provinces.” Yes, Ma’am, your Total Agriculture budget must be farmer-friendly, and the crops cultivated pocket-friendly!

Nonetheless, as an agriculturist, I declare that even with that Agriculture Budget trebled to P348 Billion, I am not yet convinced to vote for her as President! Why?

First & above all, I must know where she is coming from, what is her Vision for the whole Philippines – her Guide for her Leadership, a near-future Philippines we can all be excited about? A leader without Vision has only Ambition!@517

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[1]https://www.rappler.com/nation/elections/robredo-to-give-billions-agriculture-if-she-wins-2022-polls?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1zN5Ezc6RldxF8fsYpMRBAMOAKZzz7oN8jAYiJNU4KsSiR7bGQFVF-e-8#Echobox=1638158327

[2]https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/richard-branson/richard-branson-business-advice_b_1931712.html