Above, on 30 Jan 2025, Luisa Cabaro
says, “Marcos Tells Gov’t Workers To Spend Funds Wisely For Future Generations,”
Inquirer (newsinfo.inquirer.net). BBM spoke at the ceremony in Pasay City
on Friday, where he encouraged the 661 Development Academy of the Philippines graduates
to be “stewards of transparency and good governance (as) Filipinos deserve no
less than our utmost diligence, accountability, and integrity.”
Excellent! our
President Ferdinand “BBM” Marcos Jr
is looking ahead! (images from Inquirer & thestrategystory.com).
The Question is:
“How do you spend PH 513B wisely?” Now, to spend
wisely, first you have to plan.
As an agriculturist,
I’m much interested in what the head of the Department
of Agriculture (DA) Francis Tiu
Laurel Jr is planning on how to spend that PH 200 Billion for 2025. The
DA needs all the help it can get! I suggest to call in former DA Head William Dar – because the DA needs Vision, Mission and Strategy, and he has it. (See my article
“William Dar's 8 Paradigms For PH New Thinking For Agriculture,” 26 Aug 2019, Communication for Development, ComDev). We need new thinking to solve old problems of PH agriculture!
Planning – The
current DA has none of these: Vision, Mission, Strategy.
Like: What will the
DA do with 3 million farmers who are poor? How to get them out of poverty?
What is the DA
going to do with greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture that contributes
more to the amount of greenhouse gases that generate more dangerous Climate
Change?
I can recommend to the DA the practices collective
called Regenerative Agriculture (RA)
that are farmer-friendly; here is my alphabetical list:
(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, and (13) Trash Mulching.
A good look at RA
when it comes to soil fertility is that each practice helps to add and/or keep
the natural fertility of the soil.
Those practices
are actually farmer-friendly; many farmers know some of them already. It’s just
that even the #1 Public Friend in Agriculture of PH, the DA, is not thinking
beyond the current farmer practices.
The
trouble with modern agriculture is that it focuses on chemical fertility and
chemical control of pests & diseases. That’s your Modern
Agriculture, where “modern” contributes to Farmer Poverty!
I dare say my
country PH is in dire need of a Secretary of Agriculture who is from a poor
family, acquainted with farming and understands the ABC that causes poverty
that farmers continue to suffer. That is none other than William Dollente Dar,
an Ilocano from Ilocos Norte, formerly Director General (DG) of the International Crops Research Institute for the
Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India. He was ICRISAT DG for 3
terms until his age required retirement. But age doesn’t matter when your
country calls you!@517
No comments:
Post a Comment