My 3 Hopeful Aggie Dreams For My Country, PH – 1, Visionary Secretary of Agriculture. 2, Farmer Poverty-Minded Institution. 3, Organic-Maker Rotavator – “Rotavator X”

 I’m 84, an Ilocano, a college graduate of Agriculture, writer in English, and a dreamer. Recently, I have been dreaming for my country PH these:

1, For the re-appointment of William Dar as Secretary of Agriculture – for his visionary leadership in the Department of Agriculture.
(image from da.gov.ph)

2, For the millions of poor farmers of the Philippines to enrich themselves by themselves via inspired holistic agriculture.

3, For an aggie institution to produce and reproduce science that enables those millions of farmers to become rich and continue to be rich.

4, For the production of an off-the-shelf intelligent rotavator that by itself produces an organic mulch and distributes all over the field even as it cultivates it!

5, For the construction of a website for a poverty-conscious PH agriculture.

1, Visionary Secretary of Agriculture

I have only one person in mind – William Dar, former Secretary of Agriculture (SOA). As of the moment, Mr Dar is the only one I believe who believes in the indefatigableness of the Filipino farmer who will surely rise from poverty with the leadership & guidance of a visionary SOA.

2, Poverty-Minded Aggie Institution

Hereby, I’m challenging the Los Baños-based bodies (alphabetically) – IRRI, PhilRice, UP Los Baños – to pursue Regenerative Agriculture (RA). Because Sustainable Agriculture has so far sustained the poverty of millions of Filipino farmers!

As I see it, the economic formula for poor farmers to become rich is simple: very low costs equals very high returns (VLC=VHR). To achieve VLC=VHR, they should adopt any number of these RA practices:

(1) Cover Cropping, (2) Crop Rotation, (3) Farm Crops + Tree Crops (Agroforestry), (4) Green Manuring, (5) Intercropping, (6) Multiple Cropping, (7) No-Till Farming, (8) Organic Fertilization, (9) Ratooning, (10) Rotational Grazing, (11) “Three Sisters” Planting, (12) Trap Cropping, (13) Trash Mulching.
(lower image from understandingag.com)

RA includes all crops – biotech Bt Eggplant, Golden Rice are welcome!

3, Poverty-Minded Aggie Institutions

IRRI, PhilRice, and UP Los Baños – Any of them could lead the shift from Sustainable Agriculture to RA for the poor farmers.

4, Intelligent Rotavator (Rotavator X)

I have a personally proven setup for a rotavator to automatically produce an organic mulch and spread it simultaneously all over the field! It worked on my father’s ricefield in Asingan, Pangasinan, sometime in 1966 – my father’s field outyielded the neighbor farmers much, it was astounding. Of course, that is difficult to believe – so I am hereby inviting a financing institution or group to sponsor a 1-year project to develop that Dream Rotavator – “Rotavator X.”

For Rotavator X, I will need a project sponsor to the tune of PhP 1.7 million. That project will include as outputs (1) written reports of the trials, (2) digital recordings of those trials and their results, and (3) a book based on (1) and (2) and RA practices – the book will be printed as well as downloadable as digital copy online in the website “Rotavator X.”

I’m dreaming of happier days for PH Agriculture!@517