RCEF For PH Agriculture: Farmers Not Yet Business-Aware. Scientists Not So Active. Extensionists Not So Alive!

From Facebook sharing by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar: “DA Yet To Obligate, Disburse 65% Of RCEF For This Year[1]” by Madelaine B Miraflor (27 June 2020, Manila Bulletin):

To obligate P15 billion:
67% (P10 billion) for Mechanization
20% (P03 billion) for Seed Distribution
13% (P02 billion) for Credit & Extension.

I look at the numbers as So Much Power Distributed.

Knowledge Is Power – Thomas Jefferson.
(icon from National MS[2]) 
More powers must be applied to ailing PH agriculture today – Frank A Hilario.

I refer to the (1) Power of Budget, (2) Power of Business, (3) Power of Science, and (4) Power of Knowledge Composed & Communicated. (business plan from PESTLE Analysis[3]). These powers are all necessary, to give overall PH Agriculture the requisite assistances that it needs to help bring Filipinos from the “New Normal” to the “New Prosperity.”

We are Witness to History in the Making – and the best thing is we have in Secretary William Dar the Best National Manager for PH Agriculture.

I am sure of that. I have known him for the last 13 years starting when he was on his 8th year as Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, based in India. He was DG from January 2000 to December 2014, when he had to retire. 15 years as head of an international agency that covered/covers Asia and Africa – the Indians must have seen the high quality of Servant Leader that they had!

I knew all that because I was international consulting writer for ICRISAT from January 2007 to December 2014. As a work from home, WFH, consultant, I wrote and ICRISAT published 7 collections of my essays about its aims and accomplishments. ICRISAT's shining light was a 5-word beacon: “Science with a human face.” And so I am sure, while it has not been articulated yet, in advancing PH Agriculture, that will become:

Science with a Philippine face.
Science for all. Prosperity for all.

Nonetheless, our servant leader is not going to do it all for us! We are all in this together.

My first contribution. Differently and diffidently, I would obligate the P15 billion this way:
40% (P06 billion) for Mechanization
20% (P03 billion) for Seed Distribution
40% (P06 billion) for Credit & Extension.

I got P4 billion from Mechanization added to Credit & Extension – these 2 being most neglected until now.

One for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, and Four to go!

Super Budget: DA should have it.

Super Business: Make sure Landbank assists ably financially and teach Coops to teach Member Farmers to be mindful of Costs & Returns.

Super Science: Make sure our Research Managers & Researchers come up with more new and/or improved Aggie Science.

Super Knowledge: Make sure our Extensionists can compose & decompose Technologies and/or Systems for & bring to the attention of farmers the quickest & unobtrusive way: Digital.

"Together we act, win, heal and rise as one!" – William Dar@517

---

[1]https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/27/da-yet-to-obligate-disburse-65-of-rcef-for-this-year/

[2]https://www.nationalmssociety.org/Resources-Support/Library-Education-Programs/Knowledge-is-Power

[3]https://pestleanalysis.com/key-elements-of-business-plan/

Is The Coconut A Hard Nut To Crack? Only If Your Coconut Is!

This is a classic case of:
Damned if you do;
Damned if you don't!
And yes it involves our coconuts.

The text above those images in the Facebook sharing of Bahdor Shia said, clipped out but reproduced below (fresh coconut in box for export[1], image from Alibaba.com:

Meeting with the presidents of the coconut growers/planters of the different towns of Bohol together with the Regional Bohol-PCA. The coco farmers groups are “fully supportive of Sec William Dar’s coco initiatives but raise some concerns on the issue of re-planting of aromatic and high-yielding coco varieties. According to the farmers, for the issuance of cutting permit, an applicant has to pay a cutting fee and filing fee with the PCA, certification fee with the barangay and another fee for the chainsaw operator. Sans income because of low price of copra plus the high expenses for the permit to cut, there will be no chance for the coco farmers to revamp old trees and replant new coco varieties unless these concerns are addressed.

Bohol is the historic Philippine town where we find those Chocolate Hills – yes, from afar, they look like drops of chocolate good enough to eat. And there’s plenty of them.

Here, coconut farmers are talking with PCA officers about replanting old coconut groves with aromatic and high-yielding coconut varieties. Now:

The good news will come years later:
The bad news comes now.

Before you replant, you have to cut the old trunks – and before you can bring in any chainsaw operator, you have to pay the PCA 2 fees: for filing  and cutting. You also have to pay 2 fees with the barangay: certification and chainsaw operation.

The coconut groups are talking here of coconuts for export – aromatic and high-yielding. But the news did not say that they knew that it was part of “The 8 Paradigms” of Mr Dar’s “The New Thinking for Agriculture” for the Philippines (see #3):

(1) Modernization.(2) Industrialization.(3) Promotion of exports.(4) Consolidation of small- and medium-sized farms(5) Infrastructure development.(6) Higher budget & investment.(7) Legislative support.(8) Roadmap development.

The hesitance to pursue the rehabilitation of the old Bohol coconut groves seems to proceed mainly from the business cost – expenses for clearing and replanting; and opportunity cost – loss of income in the intervening years.

Ah, the

Twixt the optimist and the pessimist
The difference is droll;
The optimist sees the doughnut

Nobody seemed to have suggested it, but if I were there I would have recommended the formation of a coconut export cooperative, the

I am sure Mr Dar will listen to their plea – but first they have to come up with the plan!@

---

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/FRESH-COCONUT-FOR-EXPORT_50034843697.html

Bright, Beautiful, Beguiling Picture Of PH Agriculture

What you’re looking at is the Reality – as well as the Promise– of not only Soybean Farming in Surigao in far away Mindanao but also its radiating effects to all of Agriculture in the Philippines! Not obvious. You have to see more; you have to learn more. (PH map from Wikipedia[1])

An Agriculturist, a science writer of 35 years and a wide reader, I myself did not know that distant Surigao produces more than half of the country’s supply of soybeans, as according to Executive Director Abel James Monteagudo of Caraga Region (Region 13) of the Department of Agriculture, DA, news brought to us by Alexander Lopez (24 July 2020, “Mechanization Brings Hope To Surigao Sur Soybean Farmers[2],” PNA).

Mr Monteagudo said, “Even before, with their not so advanced way, soybean farmers in Surigao del Sur already (produced) more than half of the country’s soybean supply.” Months before mechanization, Surigao soybean farmers were already producing more than 50% of the PH supply – I can explain it not by size of science but by size of area: Small and Big. Surigao del Sur has been the biggest PH soybean producer since 1980.

Mr Monteagudo said the DA-supplied machinery “will help soybean farmers produce fast with less cost and better quality of farm produce.” With farm equipment, you cannot hurry up the natural growth of soybeans but can increase economies of scale and come up with cleaner beans with least sweat.

In November 2019, the Meme Agricultural Farmers Association, MAGFA, in the town of Tago, received from DA Caraga a water pump, multi-grain thresher (above image), and sorting machine. MAGFA Chair is Annabelle Dela Fuente Loja. The group has 100 hectares devoted to soybeans, which go into a wide variety of human and animal foods.

 “Soybean thrives well especially here in our Barangay, in Layug, Tago; that is why we have been planting this crop for a long time now,” Miss Loja said. With the new machinery from the DA, now they realize that their previous ways of farming were “time-consuming and labor-intensive.” With modern farming technology, you need less human effort and time spent and yet produce more with higher quality than before.

A member of MAGFA, Joel Ochavillo talked about another kind of assistance their group was getting from Caraga Region 3: Marketing. DA Caraga has helped MAGFA bring up the selling price of their soybean from P20/kilo to P30/kilo in Davao City. That is a wild, welcome jump of 50% in gross income! A doubling success.

Overall, MAGFA Chair Miss Loja says:

Many farmers are now encouraged to venture into soybean farming after seeing the improvements we experienced with the help of DA-13 through mechanization and support in marketing.

Mr Lopez’ good news on the “doubling success” of soybean farming of Surigao del Sur emphasizes the value of modern technology less and the value of marketing more. Unless marketing of produce is contracted for in advance, farmers always stand to lose in the wild universe of marketing.

Marvelous Science must be matched with Farmer-Friendly Marketing!@517

---

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines

[2]https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1109958

A PH Lady Journalist Is Worried About The Animal Manure That Goes Into The Organic Fertilizer

So, why do they use animal manure to make organic fertilizers anyway?

Rena S Hermoso writes “Knowing the Potentials, Limitations Of Organic Produce And Farming[1]” (17 July 2020, BusinessDiary), and it is not so-good-news:

(In) recent years, organic produce has been gaining attention from the public for its nutritional benefits and being pesticide-free. However, the public must also realize that organic produce has its own set of potentials and limitations. While it is important to know the benefits of consuming organic produce, it is also equally important to learn its limitations to mitigate its negative effects and maximize its full potential.

This is journalistic hyperbole that media serve and people relish so they buy more print copies or surf the media websites more often. That first paragraph makes it appear that organic farmers do not really care about their customers except as buyers of their farm produce.

This perceived threatto health of organic consumers is explained vaguelyby Miss Rena in these words:

Just like how pesticide residue or contamination threatens the safety of conventionally-grown produce, microbial contamination is the threat to the safety of organically-grown produce. This is primarily due to the use of animal manure in organic production. More so, microbial contamination cannot just occur during the production stage but in every stage of the handling-distribution chain.

That is based on prejudice and not from a scientific study. Miss Rena did not do enough background research on this one to know that organic fertilizers are produced only when the organic materials have decomposed completely – no plant or animal tiny or small are left alive in that converted mass, all microorganisms killed. So, how can the animal manure infect the farm produce growing in the field?  

But prejudice is prejudice, and I am sure there are thousands, nay millions who share the same view, if inarticulated.

Well, if I were a farmer and wanted to make honest money from organic produce, I will avoid animal manure altogether. I will grow my food crops with organic mulchinstead. That organic mulch I will build on top of my farm like this:

Farmers hate the weeds – I love them! I will use the rotavator to plow in the weeds and crop refuse (if any) so that in one passing, the soil has been cut to tiny pieces and the vegetation has been cut to tiny pieces – and mixed together in one smooth operation. As I continue to rotavate my field, I will continue to create that organic mulch over my field. When I am done rotavating, I already have my organic fertilizer – man-made, natural.

My organic mulch should be the answer to the challenge, articulated by Dormita R Del Carmen, a University Researcher of the Postharvest Horticulture Training and Research Center, PHTRC, of UP Los Baños, as reported by Miss Rena, for organic farmers to deliver “organically-grown fruits and vegetables that have same safety, quality and shelf-life as their conventionally-grown counterpart.”

Not all organically grown farm produce are equal!@

 

---

[1]https://businessdiary.com.ph/15458/knowing-the-potentialslimitations-of-organic-produce-and-farming/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

PH DA Capturing The Full Power Of The Digital

In this Digital Age, the DA-ATI should be #1 in terms of knowledge dissemination. First Class.

The Agricultural Training Institute, ATI, is the official training arm of the Department of Agriculture, DA – as such, it should be on top of the situation. Well, with the video above, it’s trying to be. But there is more to be done. Like: Showing every single step. Putting in English captions.

Do you realize that prior knowledge is no longer a barrier to learning anything new?

That video is on practical ensiling with plastic bags, for the goats: using sugarcane tops, corn, sorghum, napier, even rice straw. Ensiling keeps the nutrients and moisture in the leaves while they await to be fed to livestock.

ATI’s digital work has just begun! In its own website, ATI says:

Extension services continue to evolve. With the challenges that extension workers and farmers face, the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) continues to explore various strategies to improve its efforts as the extension and training arm of the Department of Agriculture.

The top image is my screen grab of a demonstration of “Paano Ang Wastong Paggawa Ng Silage?” (What Is The Right Way To Prepare Silage?) It is an evolution of ATI extension because it is virtual, not simply physical.

Now, there are 41 training centers all in all under ATI. If extension is to evolve, and it should, without planning and coordination, we are talking of 41 training centers producing similar video materials on a total of 41 Philippine crops (my low estimate)!

(1) Abaca
(2) Ampalaya
(3) Avocado
(4) Banana
(5) Beans
(6) Cabbage
(7) Calamansi
(8) Cassava
(9) Chico
(10) Coconut
(11) Coffee
(12) Corn 
(13) Cotton
(14) Cucumber
(15) Durian
(16) Eggplant
(17) Garlic
(18) Hot pepper
(19) Jackfruit
(20) Lanzones
(21) Mabolo
(22) Mango
(23) Mungo
(24) Okra
(25) Onion
(26) Papaya
(27) Passion fruit
(28) Peanut
(29)  Pineapple
(30) Pomelo
(31) Rambutan
(32) Rice
(33) Santol
(34) Squash
(35) Strawberry
(36) Sugarcane
(37) Sweet pepper
(38) Sweet potato
(39) Tobacco
(40) Tomato
(41) Watermelon

That’s only my fast list. (And I have not made mention of livestock.)

What am I driving at here? Already, the ATI has 41 crops to produce learning materials for.

Careful!

The ATI must first prepare separate working sets of the digital materials for the 41 crops. Initially, should the ATI distribute the work so that each of the centers works on only 1 crop? Maybe, but there should be Institute-wide final review and recommendation.

Here is the digital package I’m thinking for each crop:

I separate the Learning Materials (texts & still images) from the Training Materials (video accompanied by captions).

The Learning Materialsshould include the following (along with sources of data & information):

(1) Names of crop: common and local
(2) Economic importance:
(3) Uses

The Training Materialsshould show digitally everything from selecting planting materials to caring to harvesting to marketing. Every single step.

ATI, with the Digital Age, you never had it so good! Don’t make our farmers feel bad by failing them!@517

PH Land Reform – Mind Reform Instead Of Distribution Reform

Truth to tell, PH land reform has never progressed beyond distribution of land – because the distribution of land is bad! So now we have many landowners, but no successful farmer from among the beneficiaries.

Small isn’t beautiful!

Is it because of the stupidity of the authors of the law – or the stupidity of the farmers? Neither. It’s the stupidity of some economists!

In his column in BusinessWorld, Raul V Fabella says the Department of Finance, DoF, the National Economic and Development Authority. NEDA, and Congress are “contesting how best to reverse the economic free-fall wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.” The DoF and NEDA believe that the best way is to grant private corporate income tax deduction, to give them “breathing space,” from 30% down to 25%. Economists are hoping that the tax savings will be converted by private firms into new investments, new jobs. Similarly, Congress wants “to create jobs by ramping up state infrastructure spending.”

It happened in the USA, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President:

Realistically, it is only demand-pulling stimulus mounted by a welfare-oriented… government that could arrest the negative feedback loop of a free fall. Classical economists were horrified by Keynes’ heretical position: “What? Pay people to dig holes in the ground only to refill them?” asked detractors. President FD Roosevelt initiated the New Deal along Keynes’ lines: hired idled workers to replant America’s forests, build dams and roadways, and this pushed back the crisis.

Thank you President Roosevelt! After this pandemic, with our idled workers we will replant devastated Philippine forests, build dams and roadways.

But right now, I’m more interested in agriculture than infrastructure. I don’t know why but no economist, not even Mr Fabella, talks about economies of scale.

The main trouble with CARP farmers is that they do not consolidate their operations, so they do not enjoy economies of scale.

For farmers, land ownership gives you the false impression that you should be doing things on your own. They have to change their minds!

I don’t blame the farmers. I graduated from the UP College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, but I don’t remember a single lesson in farm consolidation to operate more efficiently with less cost per unit of work done.

No Sir, Mr Fabella, debt condonation will not result in renewed and better farming – CARP farmers know that they will always remain poor. You know why? When a farmer wants to buy seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, he borrows money from a usurer. When harvest comes, he is forced to sell at the price that the merchant is offering, to pay off his debts.

Rather than debt condonation, I recommend that CARP farmers in a town be organized into a multi-purpose cooperative. The coop will then be the source of much cheaper loans, as well as the keeper of farm machines that everybody can use. The coop can ask financial and other assistances from the Department of Agriculture under Secretary of Agriculture William Dar.

Then I’m sure the CARP farmers will rise to the occasion after the pandemic!@517

 

Who Are The First Ones To Recommend Their Children To Not Become Farmers? Farmers!

This is the Philippines, ladies and gentlemen, farming country, and the male parent does notwant his son to become a farmer himself!

That is a major finding of UP Los Baños lady researcher Florencia G Palis in her study “Aging Filipino Rice Farmers and Their Aspirations for Their Children” (June 2020, Philippine Journal of Science, Science & Technology Information Institute).

Son of a farmer, that is notnews to me, but it’s still dismaying.

Miss Palis found the farmer fathers would rather have their children study and apply for jobs in the cities or work abroad. That was 65% of her respondents; only 35% wanted their children to be like them, farmers.

In her paper, Miss Palis said, as reported by Dhel Nazario, “Farmers Not Keen On Children Following In Their Footsteps – Study[1]” (23 July 2020, Manila Bulletin):

The risk associated with rice farming as a means of livelihood further discourages parent farmers to aspire for their children to be like them. The uncertaint(ies) in yield and income (are) real to them and they attribute (those) to unpredictable weather situations, unstable output price and input costs, and natural disasters like heavy rains, floods, and drought, including pest and disease infestations.

As a farmer’s son, and an Agriculturist, I can explain those uncertainties in yield and income.Most likely those farmers are still using their own varietal selections, so they cannot expect higher yields. Or when they transplant the rice seedlings, it’s helter-skelter – how do you expect good growth from the seedlings you did not value much by giving them improper distancing (should be 25 x 25 cm) and planting 2 or 3 seedlings per hill (should be only 1 single seedling per hill, following the technique called System of Rice Intensification, SRI)!

Aling Tasya said, “My waist and back are painful, especially during and after transplanting the rice seedlings. I need to bear these pains so that I can provide some food for my family.” Aling Tasya, if you did the SRI, you would have enjoyed your transplanting of rice! SRI would also double your yield, even treble it – ask your local farm technician about it!

Miss Palis also pointed out:

With high input costs, they are forced to borrow money from informal lenders who charge them high-interest rates, or traders who require them to sell their produce immediately at a low (price) after harvest.

Aling Tasya, what’s causing your poverty are those people taking advantage of people  when they need money!

Miss Palis says, “There is a need to pay attention to rural services for agricultural extension including hassle-free and practical mechanisms of providing capital to farmers.”

Don’t forget cooperatives!

Now, madam, if you have been browsing Facebook, during these months of lockdown, you will have known of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar’s “The New Thinking for Agriculture” – and the current national efforts, led by him, to help farmers financially and mechanically by providing farm machines.

These are the worst of times,
and these are the best of times!@517

---

[1]https://mb.com.ph/2020/07/23/farmers-not-keen-on-children-following-in-their-footsteps-study/?fbclid=IwAR0BvetY0buXJzzglTxT3tAmdVHRuSu4CeP1JxRAdvNhTC0R5tRuUXN1oA4