People, We Need A Primate Change To Combat Climate Change In The PH Department Of Agriculture! We Need A Secretary With A Vision, Mission, Strategy!

In these dark times of Climate Change, where is the “Vision” proclaimed for Filipino farmers by The Primate at PH Department of Agriculture (DA)?” None that I can see!

(original image from everypixel.com)

Climate Change is here, and no one can deny it – except if you have blindfolded yourself and/or are pretending not to notice! What do you call the increasing and devastating occurrences of El Niño and La Niña? “Global warming” – Nature (nature.com).

I just googled
images vision Philippines “Department of Agriculture”
exactly as you see the 6 words in the 2^nd line above in this paragraph, including the double quotes, and only 1 correct image showed, from Facebook, that from William Dar when he became PH Agriculture Secretary, 2019-2022. He had “New Thinking for Agriculture” – the more we need that now! Think, Primates, People!

All that tells me that the current leadership of PH Agriculture has, knowingly or unknowingly, blindfolded himself to avoid seeing the ravages of Climate Change, such as thousands of people suffering, families in distress.

What El Niño? What La Niña?
“Ignorance is bliss!” (courtesy of British poet Thomas Gray)

As far as I know, as much as I can discern from the (lack of) announcements and pronouncements from the PH DA, our current Agri Sec Francis Tiu Laurel Jr is not keen on meeting headlong Climate Change with Primate Change, beginning with himself as the Primary Primate. He does not see the need for any changes in Chemical Agriculure (CA), which is a huge contributor to Climate Change? What I know as an agriculturist is that chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides generate greenhouse gases (GHGs) that help generate El Niño and La Niña. If Mr Secretary doesn’t know that, time to educate him!

What can we Filipinos do?

First: President BBM, time to change the Secretary of Agriculture!

As I put it, it’s time for “Primate Change for Climate Change!” Let us have an Agri Sec who is very much aware of the current Climate Change crisis and has the Vision/Mission/Strategy to lead each of us Pinoy primates/farmers changing from chemical agriculture to regenerative agriculture!

“Regenerative Agriculture” (RA) as a term or idea may sound foreign but actually farmers are familiar with its principles and practices. Here are a few of them:

Regenerative Agriculture Modified List Of Practices (from FAH):

1, Cover cropping
2, Crop rotation
3, Farm crops + tree crops (Agroforestry)
4, Green manuring
5, “Intelligent rotavation”
6, Intercropping
7, Multiple cropping
8, No-till farming
9, Organic fertilization
10, Ratooning
11, “Three Sisters” planting
12, Trap cropping
13, Trash mulching.

(Where “Intelligent rotavation” is an invention of Frank A Hilario.)

We have to act as soon as possible (ASAP)! There will always be harsh weather, but not as harsh as when we learn to reduce to near zero our GHGs – by practicing any and all of the above. ASAP!

We need a Secretary of Agriculture who will lead us from the darkness to the light!@517