Just being Editor in the field of Agriculture and neither an environmentalist nor a psychologist, I am quite disturbed to read “Human Connection To Nature Has Declined 60% In 200 Years, Study Finds” by Monique Moate (03 April 2023, End Time Headlines, wd  cnews6.com). That explains many bad/sad things to me!

I say”
“Not BAD” – If you “simply commune with nature” by “being there” in the open, you are not influencing Mother Nature, simply enjoying what she has or is for you.

“BAD” – A farmer is trying to play God by trying to influence the relationships of living beings that God created in the world and on his field – that he must appreciate, not exterminate.

I believe, given those examples, directly my well-being depends on me, primarily on me, not the Creator, not God, not Mother Nature.

Considering that, I say the well-being of a farmer depends primarily on him, not the Supreme Being. His behavior in the field greatly influences the outcome of what he does as a farmer, the Laws of Nature having been declared long before the farmer was born.

Farmer or not, according to Ms Monique:

“Computer modelling predicts that levels of nature connectedness will continue to decline unless there are far-reaching policy and societal changes – with introducing children to nature at a young age and radically greening urban environments the most effective interventions.”

Ah! Along with radically greening urban environments, I would insist on radically greening all those rural environments, especially the farms!

And how do we green the farms? Simple: Prohibit the farmers from burning anything on it, from spraying any chemicals on any “unwanted” species, We show them how “dead leaves turn into life-giving materials” by adding life to growing plants, farmer crops or not! In short: Natural Fertility.

And how do we get the farmers to obey such a command? Simple: Teach them to produce their own organic fertilizers!

In fact, I know of 13 ways by which we can farm successfully without using chemicals – without having to follow the strict rules in producing organic fertilizers that some environmentalists dictate. These 13 practices are called, collectively, Regenerative Agriculture (RA):
(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.

My personal list, I must point out. With such a list, not a single farmer has any good reason for avoiding Regenerative Agriculture.

Farmer, if you love Farming, you must love Mother Nature and not Chemicals loving Mother Nature!

The heart of the matter lies in connecting with Mother Nature, I Agriculturist say. If there is no such connection, there is no obedience to the laws of Mother Nature! (No, I did not learn that in school, at UP Los Baños College of Agriculture, now UPLB. It’s personal observation.) Mother Nature knows best!@517

 

 

Poor Logic! PH CA Justice Antonio Bruselas Jr Pushing For “Filipino” As Primary Court Language; As A UPLB-Taught Teacher, I Say “Justice Does Not Depend On Language But Logic!”

Jane Bautista writes in the 11 August issue of Inquirer.Net (newsinfo.inquirer.net):

“To bring judiciary closer to people” is the rationale for Associate Justice Apolinario Bruselas Jr of the Court of Appeals in Manila even as he has been trying for more than a decade to cause a ripple of change in the system by writing (his) decisions in Filipino.”

Atty Bruselas, this is not simply a question of justice. It is first a question of (1) truthfulness followed by the (2) ability to translate – #1 is more important than #2. Justice is all logic. (“Logic” image source Shutterstock, shutterstock.com, “2 heads” from Shutterstock.com).

(Also, the translators should have an Editor In Chief, no kidding.)

No Sir! It is not language that is important in giving justice to anyone anywhere – it is logic. And logic can be explained in any language.

Now then, how do we explain, with or without a court case finished or not finished, how justice is playing in the field of agriculture, where we find that millions of Filipino farmers are poor!?

My own answer to my own question is: “Justice is not playing in the farmers’ fields! Why should farmers be poor who toil night and day with the soil?”

“To bring justice closer to the people” is not simply to speak their language – especially in the Philippines where there are multi-languages, but to make sure that the people understand in their language what they are going through in and out of court, that which is in English.

More importantly – Forget the language, Atty! The Philippines has 5 million native speakers (Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org): Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, and Hiligaynon. In addition, there are 7 languages with between 1 and 5 million native speakers: Central Bikol, Waray, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Maguindanao, Maranao,  and Tausug.

What is more important than understanding the (English) language of the court is understanding the logic of the law. I can understand the logic of the court only if I can understand the logic of the law!

Example: What is most important to me right now, as an Editor In Chief in Agriculture (if self-appointed) – is to bring to the farmers the literature of farming that will bring about the prosperity of all farmers, big and small! That would be justice for all. Literature that they would understand. No, Sir, not simply a problem of translating from English to any of the Filipino languages.

Voltaire says, “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” Applying that, it is better to risk saving the poor in their poverty than condemning somebody else for that poverty!

Now then, instead of condemning the current set of technologies of farming, I prefer to offer a qualitatively and quantitatively different set of technologies for agriculture. It’s called “Regenerative Agriculture.” No, I did not invent that set; the term was masterminded by Robert Rodale.

and yes, RA reinvents Agriculture eveywhere. Brilliant logic!@517

President Fidel Valdez Ramos – The One President I Would Have Supported If He Declared Another Martial Law, That Time To Modernize Philippine Economy!

We are talking here of heroes in the field and on paper, both Ilocanos like me – Ferdinand Edralin Marcos (FM) from Ilocos Norte was a Hero on Paper and Fidel Valdez Ramos (FVR) from Pangasinan was a Hero in the Field. Now, FM was a good President, but ambition got the better of him; FVR was a good President too, but ambition failed him. (image from YouTube.com)

FM held on to his ambition of power;
FVR could have en-Visioned a New Philippines: like Nasyon nga Naraniag ken Umili nga Naragsak (Bright Country and Happy People). FM had the first in his plan; he stopped short of the second. He may have been thinking outside himself and his family, but not thinking of Filipinos achieving for themselves.

And elsewhere, I myself was only thinking of my Ilocano family!

So, as a form of saying goodbye to my townmate President, who died yesterday, July 31, I have written this article, declaring:

Mr Ramos, you could have done more and better after Mr Marcos!

I’m talking now of Visionary Leadership.

What the Philippines needs today is a Blueprint for Archipelagic Development (BAD). (BAD would have been good for FM.)

If I have learned anything from former PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, who played the unmatchable & stellar role as Director General who brought the nternational Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) from last place to first place in the achievement list of members of the international CGIAR Group, it’s this:

·      You need Vision (institutional ambition)

·      Your Mission will bring you to the achievement of that Vision.

·      Your Vision & Mission will bring you to your desired Destination.

So!

What Ferdinand “BBM” Marcos Jr needs to do is demand that his Secretary of Agriculture come up with a blueprint for a New Philippine Agriculture – Agrikulturang Pataba ng Pilipinas! (Agpataba!)

Fertilize the soul of this country, not simply the soil!

Of course, you will need a new and experienced and determined and visionary Secretary of Agriculture to do that: my candidate is “old” William Dar, from Ilocos Sur. BBM, of course you know him – Dar was the one whom you unceremoniously replaced when you became PH President. Please correct your mistake now!

What did Mr Dar say then?

"Ang legacy po natin ay may direksyon ang sektor ng agrikultura (Our legacy is that the agriculture sector has direction), ‘yung (the) thinking, it led to a new food security development framework. There was the global summit of the food systems approach so we made our own version of that, sinama na natin ito lahat sa (we rolled everything into the) OneDA Reform Agenda. That's a legacy. We have a direction for the future. It will be the solid foundations of the sector."

What my townmate and PH President FVR had not seen, and what current President BBM has not grasped, is that the Philippines needs an enriching mind managing the whole agriculture of the nation. Total agriculture!@517

“Farmer Poverty & The Philippine Crisis” According To UPLB Prof Ted Mendoza. Here Comes Me, The Editor In Chief!

On the Internet, our UP Los Baños science friend Prof Teodoro C Mendoza has just come up with a book-length treatise on what ails Philippine Agriculture, titled “Farmer Poverty & The Philippine Crisis.”

No, he did not ask me to edit that manuscript. Excuse me, but once an editor, always an editor,

Since I graduated with a BSA Ag Edu from UP Los Baños in 1964, with a background reading English and American literature starting in my high school days at the reading-rich Rizal Junior College in Asingan, Pangasinan –  I slowly began to become The Editor In Chief (TEIC) who questioned everything in sight. Well, that’s the perfect attitude of a TEIC!

Prof Ted cites many factors associated with Poverty:

1.     Corruption in govt spending

2.     Overpopulation

3.     Corrupt leaders

4.     Children leav(ing) farms

5.     Rent-seeking political allies

Prof Ted’s is one way of looking at Farmer Poverty – from the Inside of government – I look at farmer poverty from the Outside. But as the ideal TEIC, I always want to simplify, and it’s as simple as this:

Modern Farming: High Costs = Low Returns.

1.     Farmers don’t know how to save? They have nothing to save! How can you enjoy Much Returns when you are burdened by Much Costs?

2.     Farmers are not enjoying the best harvests they can get from their farms – instead, they incur so much damage from pests. That is because the crops do not grow naturally and the insect pests love the chemically grown crops!

Prof Ted says:

“… the Philippines’ endemic poverty, unchecked population growth, labor export dependence, and spiraling indebtedness are (neither) natural phenomena nor failures of isolated governance – but the result of deliberate structural sabotage.”

“Sabotage” – I will leave the reply to government experts. Me, I’m simply convinced that if our farmers practiced Regenerative Agriculture (RA), they will redeem themseleves from the eyes of their families, as with their country.

Under RA:

(1)  Crops grow with low costs.

(2)  Crops yield high harvests.

(3)  No need for pest & disease control by chemicals.

An enumeration of RA should be enough:
(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.

Prof Mendoza mentions “unchecked population growth” – that argument becomes personal because I have thirteen (13) children with only one (1) wife! In any case, “unchecked population growth” assumes that the economy is doing well – and I know that my country’s economy is unwell under current national leaderhip.

What I know based on my UPLB training and personal outside-UPLB readings & learnings is that in agriculture, we insist on scientist-determined crop growth patterns and products and not nature-based results such as crop outputs from organic matter-enriched soils.

Prof Mendoza? Perhaps we can conduct a side-by-side actual study comparison of the actual ways we believe should be practiced by farmers?@517

The Internet As An Open Library – Why Are The Young Ones Evidently Enjoying It While We The Old Ones Are Largely Ignoring The Hidden Treasures?

The Internet is an open door to any kind of information, or dis-information. We adults eveywwhere via the Internet should be learning more while the children are all scrolling & schooling!

What’s missing in the above image of young ones focused on their individual digital spaces in the Internet, no crowding? (image from sg.images.search.yahoo.com). The Search for Entertainment is obviously there, if invisible; the Search for Knowledge is anything but obvious.

If you ask me, what’s missing is an adult with his/her gadget roaming the vast spaces of the digital “universe” – not simply “world” – pursuing one’s own agenda of knowledge.

And the above image, which I now title “Internet Youth,” you can view it this way:

You see how I look at the same scene as the person selling any of those gadgets? I’m selling knowledge while s/he is selling devices!

The Teacher that I am says: “Today, Learning is not simply Schooling. It is roving the vast digital world of knowledge and determining for yourself what is True and what is False – or Maybe.

Scrolling is exploring the vast, largely unexplored universe of the Internet – and you don’t know what you learn until you do!

The Internet companies are not really targeting the families, only the ones whose members they believe would be most interested in modern gadgets: young son, eldest daugther, young daughter, eldest son… not to mention friends from faraway places.

At first glance, the top image is a welcome scene – everyone busy in one’s own world, not disturbing anyone else!

Do we now have enough gadgets in the Philippines? Says our source:

“In the Philippines, “households with access to the Internet rose to 13.56 million nationwide last year, or 28.8 percent, from the 17.7 percent in 2019, according to a survey conducted by the Philiippine Statistics Authority and the Department of Information and Communications Technology.“

Here is the news, “No Internet Access,” Philippine Star 21 July 2025:

Households with access to the Internet rose to 13.56 million nationwide last year, or 28.8 percent, from the 17.7 percent in 2019, according to a survey conducted by the Philiippine Statistics Authority and the Department of Information and Communications Technology.

While any improvement is a positive development, it’s still disheartening to know that more than half of households nationwide still lack Internet access in the digital age. This lack of access to one of the basic learning tools can only aggravate the education crisis that the country faces.

To this digital hound, I am more concerned about cultivating the soil with those who have gadgets and yet use them merely or mostly to talk to people and while away the time.

Schoolteachers have to teach beyond the classroom!

And local governments have to assist families so that they can have Internet anytime!

What the teachers can teach in terms of excavenging the wealth of the Internet is how a student can discover one’s wished-for riches in terms of knowledge and skills!@517

“Let UP Lead” – Lead Us To What, I Wonder? Our Dear Alma Mater Has Not Been Leading Us Anywhere Except Here And There!

“Let UP Lead” is our friend Charlz Castro’s Facebook sharing of 12 July from Rolando Jose Felipe Mallari. Our alma mater University of the Philippines (UP), born 117 years ago, is ancient – and now is the time we are telling her, “Let UP Lead”?!

The UP Diliman image above is from Getty (gettyimages.com). I see, “With the dark light of Farmer Poverty, in PH Agriculture, that is all the brightness that we can see!”

So, there has been a surge of Latin honors – “that over 60% of UP Diliman’s graduating class were awarded Latin honors” – and that called for “sashes upon sashes flowing like a river of gold and crimson across the amphitheater.” All deserved, yes.

And here lies the heart of the matter: UP is being called to attention not because it has faltered, but because it leads.

Yes?

But not in Agriculture!

I must blame the UP Los Baños economists ever since 19-forgotten for not studying their science and therefore coming up short in their agriculture!

Is it: “Too Late The Hero!”?

Remember: UP was born in Los Baños in March 1908; note that the latest news is that farmers are among the poorest (31%) in 2024 according to the Philiippine Statistical Authority. As a farmer;s son. I know you cannot be lazy as the son or farmer himself!

Our alma mater UP has been no help at all in solving Farmer Poverty!

“When Everyone Shines: A Personal Reflection on the Surge of Latin Honors” at UP by Rolando Q Mallari – I say: “Some graduates shine, but none of the farmers do!”

There was a time when to be a cum laude at the University of the Philippines meant something almost mythic. I remember it vividly – those grueling years in UP during the late 1970s and early 1980s. We wore our weariness like a second skin. There was no Internet to search for quick answers, no mental health breaks, no asynchronous lectures to replay when we faltered. Just books we had to hunt for in the Main Library, professors who pushed us to the brink, and long nights when the only light came from the flicker of a desk lamp and the distant hum of the electric fan.

Today, the academic honors come – all too easily to too many students and academicians all too fast?

No, Mr Mallari says, “Because I know UP. And UP does not give away excellence.”

How about UP does not give away poverty?!

As a teacher myself, BSA Ag Ed 1965 and son of a farmer:

“This generation – these young minds – came of age not in a time of peace and stability, but during a global reckoning. They studied while the world shut down. They learned while mourning. They kept going amid a pandemic that redefined human existence. Their classrooms were not shielded spaces – they were battlegrounds of resilience.

I want not simply resilience but excellence, not simply high incomes but conquest of poverty for all farmers!@517

Philippine Agriculturists! Where Are You Where (And When) We Need You Most?!

My country the Philippines is celebrating its “Agriculturists’ Month” the whole of July, and the foreseeable & progressive aim is to transform Philippine Agriculture from low profitability to high profitability, “Beyond Sustainable, Towards Enhanced Nationwide Agricultural Productivity And Competitiveness.”  (image “Transformative” from sg.images.search.yahoo.com) This is all-of-July celebration.

Philippine agriculturists are celebrating the “Agriculturists’ Month” with the theme, “Beyond Sustainable, Towards Enhanced Nationwide Agricultural Productivity And Competitiveness.”

Careful there now! Our agriculturists are and/or I am assuming that their agriculture is already “enhanced” so much as to produce so much. I don’t blame them – but that’s it: The productivity of modern agriculture can only multiply so much – that is, without degrading the soil, without debilitating the crops via chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides – and can never be self-sustaining. Sustainable, but not self-sustainable – there is a great difference!

Here are alternatives, and any of the 13 practices of Regenerative Agriculture (RA) – name & scheme borrowed from the American Rodale Institute – is highly productive and highly self-sustaining:

(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.

Wow!

July is “Philippine Agriculturists’ Month” as declared by President Ferdinand “BBM” Marcos Jr (Proclamation 544, 10 May 2024) (see top image):

WHEREAS, Republic Act No 8435 or the "Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997" declares it a policy of the State to enable those who belong to the agriculture and fisheries sectors to participate and share in the fruits of development and growth in a manner that utilizes the nation's resources in the most efficient and sustainable way possible by establishing a more equitable access to assets, income, basic and support services, and infrastructure…

I am a teaching agriculturist – BSA Ag Edu 1965, UP Los Baños – now then, I’m eager to “participate and share in the fruits of development and growth in a manner that utilizes the nation's resources in the most efficient and sustainable way possible…”

In fact, as one of The Editor In Chiefs hanging around (about me, you can ask any member of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science), I am more interested in this; at home I can produce the reading & viewable materials:

“The celebration of the Philippine Agriculturists(‘) Month will engage professional agriculturists in agricultural advocacy, policy research and formulation, and provide an avenue for enterprise-building, communications training, and community development.”

Agricultural advocacy – as an agriculturist, I hereby advocate that RA be taught in all barangays in the Philippines immediately! None of those practices are sophisticated, none requires new varieties and new ways of growing them – See easy list above.)

”Whereas, the celebration of the Philippine Agriculturists(‘) Month will engage professional agriculturists in agricultural advocacy, policy research and formulation, and provide an avenue for enterprise-building, communications training, and community development.”

Filipino farmers, here comes me with RA! Here is science to fall in love with!

To say is to believe!@517