From amazon.com (top image), “Farmers do it better” has 2 conflicting messages to me: (1) “Farmers do know more.” (2) “Farmers, please do it better!” If the farmers knew better, there would be zero poor farmers anywhere! Today, we learn from a farmer who knows better: Daisy Langenegger (lower image, Facebook page, facebook.com).
Good news/bad news. Alexis
Romero says, “Marcos Condones Farmers’ Debts” (01 Oct 2024, PhilStar, philstar.com):
The government has condoned the debts of 3,527
agrarian reform beneficiaries in Tarlac amounting to P124.64 million as part of
the implementation of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act signed by President
Marcos last year.
So: 3,000 Agrarian farmers have no
more debts, zero.
So: 3,000,000 Filipino farmers are still poor!
BBM is not paying attention to those
3M farmers economically classified as “poor” – and neither is Secretary
of Agriculture Francis L Tiu Laurel Jr!
Now then,1 lady has 1 big lesson for those
2 big gentlemen. Here are the personal & pertinent words of lady organic farmer
Daisy Langenegger in her Facebook sharing 28 Sept 2024:
“At
Green Daisy heritage ecological farm, we persevere to be better and better
farmers to make our rice crop resilient to the extreme growing climate
condition and in bringing down the cost of rice farming by harnessing the
innate power of our thriving and
balanced eco system.We gain by not having to buy our farming in puts and not
spreading toxicity that harms the health of the land and people.”
Ms
Daisy is wrong on 3 counts, must be “conditions,” “ecosystem” and “inputs.” Grammar
only.
Ms Daisy is right where it counts – principles: (1) “harnessing the innate
power of our thriving and balanced ecosystem… and (2) “not spreading toxicity.”
As an agriculturist, I know that Chemical Agriculture (CA), the system
practiced all over the Philippines, does not harness the power of the
ecosystem – even as it spreads toxicity! With CA, unwittingly, each
farmer becomes his own enemy.
So: CA
is the major factor that keeps those 3 million Filipino farmers still poor!
What do we have to do now? I say, as an
agriculturist and a conservationist, the DA must proclaim all over the land the
necessary adoption/application of the 13 practices under Regenerative
Agriculture (RA)! A
more friendly term for it is Organic Agriculture (OA) – and I tell you OA is
OK!
(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.
But we
have a problem here – the Secretary of Agriculture neither believes nor advises
RA to our farmers, even as these 13 RA practices would save millions of pesos
for those millions of farmers:
And so I repeat my unsolicited advice: “Please, BBM,
re-appoint William Dar as
Secretary of Agriculture. Because he is himself a staunch believer in
Regenerative Agriculture. We have to regenerate Philippine Agriculture!@517
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