02 October 2024

Pinoy Media 9 – Wake Up Pinoy Journalists: “Marcos Condones Farmers’ Debts,” So Thank You, BBM, But 3 Million Farmers Are Still Poor!

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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