In PH Agriculture, How Many Single Success Stories – That’s What Some People Count. How Many Group Success Stories – That’s What Counts, People!

 

“Teaching kids to count is fine, 
but teaching them what counts is best.” 
Bob Talbert, “Generation Mindful 
genmindful.com

On Facebook, I am almost always reading about agriculture and Single Success Stories, SSS – they make their writers and their subjects happy, and I can’t take that away from them. Those journalists who come up with SSS stories are teaching people to count one by one by one.

Instead of SSS, me, I prefer to count group by group, Group Success inspiring Stories, GSiS – and as I see it, this is what the PH Department of Agriculture, DA, is concentrating on, headed by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, following his own “New Thinking for Agriculture.”

Let’s count. So far, in PH Agriculture, there are how many SSS stories already told? Say 500 since 10 years ago. Let us grant that they have inspired another 500 people, to make 1,000 SSS stories worth telling. Success means each became rich, or richer.

That’s nothing if you consider the successes of collaborative, combined efforts of groups. Pardon me, but the successes I count the most are those of farmer associations, farmer alliances, farmer cooperatives.

As with the Three Musketeers:
All For One, One For All!

And so I note with gladness that the DA has a new multi-million program as according to a press release 25 September 2020 – “DA Rolls Out P250-Million Agribusiness Grant For Farmer Coops[1]” (DA.gov.ph). When you feature SSS, you are cultivating individualism – differently, the DA under Mr Dar is cultivating collectivism, that is, clustering of efforts:

The program, “Enhanced Kadiwa Financial Grant” aims to provide cooperatives additional capital to purchase supplies and equipment and help them sell their produce directly to consumers. The grant includes vegetable crates, packing equipment, delivery truck, and revolving fund as assemblers or consolidators of fresh produce.

Never in the history of PH Agriculture has a government program been like this, distributing to groups to purchase supplies and equipment to consolidate fresh produce and deliver directly to consumers. The producers win, the consumers too!

An estimated 4,450 agri-fishery cooperatives are beneficiaries. So? So not only hundreds but thousands of people will succeed!

Another group focus is for “DA To Support Clustered Backyard Poultry, Livestock Farms[2]” (28 October 2020,  DA.gov.ph). The initial budget for this is P337 million and is part of the DA’s National Livestock Program. To qualify for the grants, would-be recipients are required to group themselves into clusters with at least 15 members, if not members already of a cooperative, association, or people’s organization. The animals distributed include goats, sheep, ducks, swine, cattle and carabaos. I learn that the project beneficiaries per module may receive the following: 100 chicks for broiler production, 40 hens for egg production, 40 ducks for balut, piglets and cattle.
(animals image[3] from Webstockreview.net)

Now then, thousands of farmers can achieve GSiS success because there is so much support from the DA!

I call that spoiling the farmers, but it’s DA-Okay!@518

 

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[1]https://www.da.gov.ph/da-rolls-out-p250-million-agribusiness-grant-for-farmer-coops/?fbclid=IwAR31LbTZuvRddEBfT84Mry_w9IDtcgBUHjWfhGPer5Y2YSM-zEF6NlwDUl0

[2]https://www.da.gov.ph/da-to-support-clustered-backyard-poultry-livestock-farms/?fbclid=IwAR3AIgwTCFFgkb7uJUYLg_Toj5i28LasNhdtMJdPwdR1AUei6u6XrEGXPoU

[3]https://webstockreview.net/explore/farmers-clipart-farmyard-animal/

For UP Los Baños To Be Really Pro-Farmer, Here’s How It Can Do Extension

The functions of the University of the Philippines’ College of Agriculture, UPCA, now UP Los Baños, have always been 3: Instruction, Research, Extension.

Pertinently, my photograph taken at UP Los Baños campus on Valentine’s Day 2019 – note the arms extended. The Oblation is saying, “With Love, Everything I have is Yours!”

Today, Friday, 27 November 2020, I google for “UPLB Development Extension” and I get the webpage https://ovcre.uplb.edu.ph, “Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Development, Extension.” Now, that webpage says Dr Merdelyn C Lit is “Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension!” Where’s “Development?”

Under Extension, the website says, “Training Programs, Analytical & Research Services, and Human Resources.” The Training Programs total 23 – it means you have to attend a training in order for UPLB to be able to say it did Extension on you.

But Training is only half of Extension – where is the other half?

Extension has to be in the field. The farmer has questions he wants answers for, or needs choices.

Look at the Oblation image again, the extended hands – to me, that is a gesture saying, “Ask me for anything and I am ready to give you!” Extension is helping someone solve a problem or resolve an issue right where that someone is. For the farmer, the extension must be in his farm.

And how can UPLB conduct Extension without hiring field technicians or extension workers? Easy. The answer is digital. Ultimately the magic of the cellphone!

PH Department of Agriculture, DA, is doing everything in the matter of pushing Agriculture to the appropriate level of socially shared productivity and profitability – but only half of Extension. So why not DA and UPLB in a common full extension program?

My proposal: Extension by Cellphone Agriculture!

First, create a Knowledge Bank on Agriculture: data & information on crops and livestock, technologies, systems etc detailed for considerations, uploaded so that they can be downloaded data by data if necessary, or as packages of information as well as options for decision by the user.

The system proposed in 2003 by now-PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar when he was Director General of ICRISAT, called Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture, OpAPA, is the knowledge bank I’m thinking of. For OpAPA, that year I prepared a digital roadmap called Geography of Knowledge, Go Know, to prepare the treasures of OpAPA, ultimately withdrawable via  cellphone. (PM me for my email address if you want a free pdf copy of Go Know.) Once OpAPA is programmed, any farmer can ask any question via his cellphone and he will get instant reply! That’s Extension.

It should not be complicated; agriculture should be simplified for the farmer. Suppose he wants to know about Hybrid Rice? With Cellphone Agriculture, just typing the words “hybrid rice” (no quotes) and he will get answers for any number of subsequent questions he can ask via his beloved cellphone. How beautiful is that?

Now, with DA funding, UPLB can do 100% OpAPA to help farmers digitally. Done right, Cellphone Agriculture is Intelligent Extension!@517

“Researchers 2020“ The World Applauds – “Farmers 2020“ The Researchers Ignore!

“Science with a human face” is the best 5-word guide I have ever encountered to national, inclusive development. You know what? The above news is all science, no human face!

“Science with a human face” means “Science serving the people.” If you did not know, that rallying cry was coined about 20 years ago by ICRISAT, based in India, when now-PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar was Director General. What good is your science if it’s all paper, no people?

Clarivate “Web of Science” has all the right to proclaim to the world about its list of “Highly Cited Researchers 2020” – these are the authors of technical papers who have been cited most often in scientific journals anywhere in the world:

Papers published enrich science –
they do not enrich the farmers.
And why not?
Farmers don’t plant, cultivate, harvest, dry & sell papers!

As a creative writer in agriculture & agroforestry in the last 45 years, beginning when I became the Chief Information Officer (not the title) of the Forest Research Institute in April 1975, scientists have been growing the sciences of Agriculture and Forestry in their field labs, but scientists have been ignoring the lives of lowland farmers and hillside farmers!

Science has improved science – but the lives of the poor farmers have remained unimproved.

I know that the prolific scientist authors deserve their due as “Highly Cited Researchers 2020” and that they are “Applauded by the world” – I also know that the farmers do not deserve being ignored by highly cited researchers!

If you look at the above composite image again, you will note the littler image I snapped on: “1. Poor productivity growth in agriculture.” (image[1]” from SlideShare.net). “Poor productivity growth” here means not only relatively high costs that give high yields but also definitely low returns to millions of farmers.

At this point in time, it is not the lack of science that is the problem in agriculture – it is the lack of scientific knowledge & poor science management reaching or guiding the farmers that have prevented them from enriching their lives with the sweat of their own brows!

I am an alumnus of UP Los Baños, and I have been Editor In Chief for several publications in agriculture and forestry in the last 45 years, so I know that when it comes to technical papers published by researchers and cited.by other researchers – those papers are good for promoting researchers, not promoting farmers!

Subsequently, I look at the published scientists in agriculture as the Lazy Juans – they are industrious in bringing new or improved knowledge to publications, but not to the farmers who need it the most!

And you know what? It is the UP System itself that promotes scientists and ignores farmers. UP promotes in rank and salary those who publish more in any of those Web of Science’s list of publications, but UP does not promote those scientists who work directly with the farmers. Activists in UP will go to the streets but not the farms.

Wisen up, UP!@517

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[1]https://pt.slideshare.net/KarlLouisseObispo/the-profile-of-the-filipino-farmer/2?smtNoRedir=1

DepEd Illustration Of Farmer Family – No Class, No Basis, No Thanks!

Class, for today, we have 2 lessons. 
1^st Lesson – Check your facts. 
2^nd Lesson – Check your figures.

If to you the right panel in the main image above is a good portrayal of a Filipino farming family, this teacher who happens to be the son of a farmer, is telling you that you have notbeen taught correctly!

I declare: Not even the poorest Filipino family head & members dress in holey clothes!

That illustration is an offence both to the farmers on one hand and the government on the other. And there is the hidden, if unintended, message: If you want to be poor, be a farmer!

Above, with her half-body inset, GMA creative writer Suzette Doctolero defends the DepEd illustration in a Grade 3 virtual learning module (Jan Milo Severo, 19 November 2020, “No Discrimination? 'Encantadia' Creator Agrees With Farmer's Look In DepEd Module[1],” PhilStar.com). “Encantadia” is a TV fantasy series on enchanted people in 4 kingdoms shown over the years in Channel 7 (GMA), which proves that Miss Suzette has an independent mind.

Now, let us look at what Miss Suzette with her liberated mind has written in defending that poor DepEd farmer illustration! This is another liberated mind speaking. This is what she wrote on Twitter:

Ah e ano ba akala sa damit ng mga magsasaka at pamilya? Branded? Tama ang drawing. Miserable ang buhay ng mga magsasaka natin. Nagkakabagong damit lang ang magsasaka ‘pag may libreng tshirt sa hardware (tuwing pasko) o give away sa election.

(So what do you think of the clothes of farmers and families – Branded? The drawing is correct. The lives of our farmers are miserable. Farmers can enjoy new clothes only if there is free T-shirt from the hardware (come Christmas), or give-away during elections.)

Miss Suzette must believe what she is saying – look at her wide smile!

But I thank you! Miss Suzette for those 41 Twitter words of yours I quoted above. I have been educated. Now I know that even media people are uneducated about the Philippines!

In this pandemic lockdown since March 2020, are we in what George Orwell describes in his prescient novel 1984, the perfect imperfect situation?

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

The illustration appears in an English module for Grade 3 pupils about “proper and common nouns” that depict a farming family as impoverished. I say the illustration itself is improper! As a media person, an agriculturist, and a certified Civil Service Professional teacher, I cannot allow DepEd to continue to depict its ignorance on farmers’ lives. There are many poor farmers, yes, but they are not as poor as the drawing above is unhappily showing everyone. This demeaning depiction of the family of a Filipino farmer must be discontinued to exist on the pages of the modules of DepEd. They are teaching the wrong things about Philippine agriculture to Filipino children!

Why? Because that the typical Filipino farmer is a pauper is one of the latest fantasies of the creator of Encantadia!@

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[1]https://www.philstar.com/entertainment/2020/11/19/2058024/no-discrimination-encantadia-creator-agrees-farmers-look-deped-module

Plant Breeders, Also Journalists Are Important In Developing PH Agriculture – But They Must Practice “Science With A Human Phase”

Remember: Science is for People, not Plant Breeders, not Journalists.

The article “SEARCA Tells Filipino Plant Breeders To Use Genomics In Crop Dev’t” in the Manila Bulletin of 23 November 2020 by Madelaine B Miraflor‌, has lessons for the Editor and the Journalist.

I happen to be an agriculturist, writer & editor. So I know that there, the Journalist misses the point of the news coming from the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture, SEARCA. The angle of the Journalist is off tangent. Yes, SEARCA said, via Director Glenn B Gregorio, “Plant breeders should use technology that makes use of gene transformation to fast-track development of crops like the Golden Rice, which has superior traits.” But that is not the major message of Mr Gregorio.

We can find that main point from what the SEARCA Director says, which the Journalist herself quotes:

I am a plant breeder, and I’m very familiar with (molecular) marker-assisted selection. As I get older, I realize the importance of sales, of commercialization. We should have market-aided selection so that our selection for traits should be based on the market, not only markers (molecular markers). There should always be a business component in everything we do.

When scientists produce a genetically modified organism, GMO, like Golden Rice that which they have bred to produce more Vitamin A than the usual rice grain, those scientists do not produce for their own satisfaction but for the rice eaters.

The market for science is the people, not the scientists!
(“Science for the people[1]” image from Astig.ph)

Very clearly, Mr Gregorio is saying, “I realize the importance of sales, of commercialization.” You have a beautiful produce? You still have to sell it to the public. “Science with a human face” was how Secretary of Agriculture William Dar put it when he was Director General of ICRISAT 2000-2014. If the people do not like your product, they will not bite!

Plant breeding is for people, not plant breeders. “We should have market-aided selection so that our selection for traits should be based on the market, not only markers (molecular markers).” The human phase is: Breed the crop according to what the target consumers want, or need.

Yes, the Journalist is right in claiming that Mr Gregorio said to use genomics in crop development, so that you can breed faster a desired crop and reduce breeding costs by 32% compared to the conventional methods. But the customer must like your new product, or there is no sale!

I remember now my idol. Whom the GMO people should be emulating in creating new products is the genius Steve Jobs of Apple – he instinctively knew what people wanted even if they could not articulate it. No market research, but when the iPod appeared, everyone wanted it! And so with the iPhone, and the iPad (tablet computer)…

Everyone needs Steve Jobs’ genius to produce and sell new products. Even among plant breeders, may his tribe increase!@517

 

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[1]https://astig.ph/bulacan-state-university-science-technology-week-2019-event/

Genius Mind-Play. The ABZ Of Creative Thinking

Childish, right? Playful. Exactly! That’s why it’s the best way to think of something new, or think out of something bothering you! For good.

The genius behind? American psychologist Carol Dweck, popularized in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. “In recent years, many schools and educators have started using Dweck's theories to inform how they teach students” (ANN, 29 August 2013, “Growth Mindset[1],” Great Schools Partnership).

Ah, but the moment I saw the Facebook sharing by Lina Concepcion Luna Ilag today, Wednesday, 18 November 2020, immediately, to teach everyone I reinvented the name to this:

Genius Mind-Play: The ABZ Of Creative Thinking.

Now then, whoever you are, simply browse the ABZ entries first and you will profit just by reading!

Attitude & effort determine how much I learn.
I can Be Brave & step out of my comfort zone.
Challenges help me grow.
I’ll try a Different strategy.
Effort makes me stronger.
I can welcome Feedback.
Getting better takes time.
How can I build on my strengths?
I can choose a growth mindset.
Learning is a Journey.
I can Keep an open mind.
Learning is my goal … not perfection.
Mistakes help me improve.
New things are opportunities for me to learn.
It’s Ok to not know something.
Plan B might work.
When I ask Questions, I learn.
It’s okay to take Risks.
Success of others inspires me.
I can choose to Try again.
Unsuccessful attempts are part of the process.
Valuable information can be found in every failure.
What can I learn from this?
XYZ didn’t work. I’ll try ABC.
I don’t know how to do this… Yet!
Zany ideas can lead to amazing things.

Me, as a creative writer, non-fiction, when I reached and read the last entry, Z, this was my immediate Facebook comment:

“Zany ideas can lead to amazing things" = if you are looking for only one, that's the secret of my creative writing. (yes, i am the most creative blogger you can find – i have thousands upon thousands of essays of at least 1,000 words each published in my blogs: just google "Frank A Hilario" including the double quotes.)

If you’re not a teacher or writer? Think Genius Mind-Play anyway:

When you have a problem,
When something is bothering you,
When you seem to be at the end of your rope,
When you need something else badly,
When you feel useless,
When you cannot continue something  you have begun,
When you feel frustrated,
When you are about to make an important decision,
When you are looking for a solution that doesn’t seem to exist!

Am now 80, continuing to blog everyday. Before this, I have been using Edward De Bono’s Po Technique for creative thinking – Po is work & play, but Genius Mind-Play is better!

You are talking to yourself alone. Whether you are still a teenager in high school or a senior like me out of school:

Using Genius Mind-Play to help you in your thinking makes you a genius: productive, creative, happy. This is a happy genius writing!@517

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[1]https://www.edglossary.org/growth-mindset/#:~:text=The%20concept%20of%20a%20growth,inform%20how%20they%20teach%20students.

Zoom Cannot Help Your Team If You Don’t Know Brainstorming Anyway! Edward De Bono’s Po Technique Is Best

Above, you are looking at the image that accompanies the article “Technology And Fresh Thinking Will Help Us Reinvent Teamwork[1]” by ANN (Author Not Named, 22 October 2020, Wired.co.uk). ANN says the article was written “in partnership with Dell Technologies and Intel.” Now I say Dell and Intel understand little creative team thinking! 
(Teamwork image[2] from CanStockPhoto)

Today, workers in the office have become workers scattered here and there, with interactions now virtual. Given the individual isolation of team members, ANN asks how can the team be more cohesive and effective:

“Can teamwork and team culture be preserved, and even reinvented, in the midst of the coronavirus emergency?”

Good question!

“Fresh thinking” in the title refers mainly to brainstorming.

“Red tape and paperwork are being slashed to the minimum and year-long problems solved swiftly out of sheer necessity,” ANN says. Now, Rana el Kaliouby, CEO of AI company Affective, asks, “How can some emerging AI-powered tools… improve the cohesiveness and harmony of a team working from home?” Her answer:

While on a video conference call, these tools can monitor each participant’s engagement and response throughout the conversation, helping to gauge how well the team is working together. “Our technology is able to track every person's expression [while on a call].

AI technology tracking expressions of each person on video, I am sure it can do that, and more. But:

The point of brainstorming is not whether everyone is paying serious attention, but whether the team as a whole is thinking creatively!

And creativity can only be measured by verbal or visual output, not “how many members of the team are paying attention” or how many talking, reacting.

Brainstorming is an art that is yet to be cultivated by digital nomads, and I don’t know anyone from Apple, Dell, Google, Intel.

Not even Tony Buzan with his Mind Mapping – there should be no map until the very end of brainstorming!

For excellent, cohesive, enjoyable and productive brainstormings, the best mentor is Edward De Bono with his Po Technique. I came across Po in 1975 in De Bono’s book Mechanism Of Mind, published 1968, which showed me how a fruitful brainstorming can result from a group or individual act – no idea is rejected, no matter that it sounds absurd or insane! Each idea is to be innocently examined, explored, investigated like crazy.

How good has the Po technique been to me, a creative blogger since 2005? My digital output should convince you:

In 100+ blogs, I have uploaded at least 4,000 long essays of 1,000 plus words each in the last 15 years!

A single blog, A Magazine Called Love, has at least 2,200 essays published.
https://amagazinecalledlove.blogspot.com

You are reading this essay in my latest blog, BraveNewWorld@PH, https://bravenewworldph.blogspot.com
If you check, this year alone, I have been blogging every single day since January 2020 –  now 80 years old, not running out of ideas?

Po brainstorming, what else? There is no brainstorming technique that can rival De Bono’s brainchild!@517

 

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[1]https://www.wired.co.uk/article/reinventing-teamwork-technology?utm_source=Paid_Social&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=Wired+Dell+Traffic+October+2020+&fbclid=IwAR2veirS73WW7Qg-lU8j_NVFbpKByyOxRDA19UG4lLpgA7Zt0I9sBDf6kW0

[2]https://www.canstockphoto.com/teamwork-people-group-20551444.html

How Do You Teach From Agriculture To Music To Research To Zamboanga? Teach How To Learn!

“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery” – Mark Van Doren, American poet, writer & critic[1].

(art image[2] from The Quotable Quote)

This Teacher & Writer agrees! I am a graduate of a BS Agriculture degree major in Ag Education, obtained from the University of the Philippines’ College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, in 1965, or 55 years ago. I passed the very first Teacher’s Exam given in the Philippines the year before that, with a grade of 80.6%, not bad for a first-timer and without attending any review classes whatsoever, not even reviewing by oneself. Mostly an exam, Civil Service or not, is recall – mechanical, repetitive, and boring.

The right way to teach never changed. Teaching is Teaching, whether you are in Agriculture, Dancing, Forestry, Kinetics, Music, Ophthalmology, Painting, Research, Ultra Numbers (I have just invented this one), Watershed, or Zamboanga.

I Teacher say that in Science or in Art, the best learning is how you discover for yourself, not what you are told or shown or made to understand.

The best learning is intuiting – that is how Albert Einstein “discovered” what became the Theory of Relativity:

E = mc²
(Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.)

Einstein said he Intuited that Theory. It appeared as an inspired thought from out of the blue.

The above main image is from a Facebook sharing by Maria De Los Reyes; when I saw it, this was my comment:

The art of teaching. This must be the best definition-non-definition of teaching that I have come across with! At 80, I have been a wide reader & creative thinker in the last 50 years.

In the learning, there must be personal joy of discovery. Gardner’s multiple intelligences, MI, invites the art of discovering for oneself which one is smart at:

(1) bodily-kinesthetic (body smart)?
(2) existential (life smart)?
(3) interpersonal (people smart)?
(4) intrapersonal (self smart)?
(5) linguistic (word smart)?
(6) logical-mathematical (number/reasoning smart)?
(7) musical-rhythmic (music smart)?
(8) naturalistic (nature smart)?
(9) visual-spatial (picture smart)?

How does one discover which intelligence one has? Once you realize it, today, the art of discovering one’s “smart” or intelligence is via

unlimited explorations and journeys
into the unknown via the Internet!
Undictated upon:

Unceremoniously, an athlete at heart will explore one way or another the world of sports. How exciting!

Unconsciously, the philosopher at heart will explore life’s questions even without realizing it.

Unknowingly, the friend at heart will explore people relationships.

Unplanned, the loner will explore that which allows oneself some peace or independence.

Unthinking, the word lover will explore stories and poems.

Unguided, the argumentative at heart will explore numbers and debates.

Unaccompanied, the musical at heart will explore the world of rhythm.

Undirected, the nature lover will explore the woods or the stars.

Unnoticed, the picture lover will explore photographs or paintings.

Given all that understanding without understanding, not to mention complexity in untutored thinking by students, as teacher: Indeed, how lucky can you get?!@517

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

[2]https://www.thequotablecoach.com/the-art-of-teaching/

Two Boys – Work-From-Home Jomar And Work-For-Whom Frank A Hilario

Surprise! A Manila paper today, 08 November 2020, comes out with a feature story by Carla Bianca Ravanes-Higham about my son Jomar Reynoso Hilario (shown above with his mother Amparo sharing dessert): “Jomar Hilario Helps Filipinos Adapt To The New World Of Work[1]” (08 November 2020, Manila Times). It’s 0930 hours Sunday as I write, and I’m eating a bar of Cloud9 doing this, thinking and typing at the same time. in my own room.

Separately, Son works from home, WFH; Father works for whom, W4W. Jomar’s WFH is for Filipinos who work for others here and/or Internet-miles abroad; my W4W is for Filipinos who work for farmers anywhere in the Philippines.

Jomar Hilario, Work From Home (WFH)

Working from home, WFH, for more than 10 years now, Jomar is a Virtual Career adviser to would-be Virtual Assistants, VAs.

Jomar looks for any number of people to mentor as VAs working for individuals or institutions away from home, producing daily, weekly, or monthly outputs for offices.

Miss Carla says Jomar advises dual-tasking, not multi-tasking, while doing your WFH. And you should have a duly designated & recognized & respected workspace at home. She says he says the pandemic lockdown has transformed jobs so that now nearly 80% of the office staff actually work from home!

Jomar notes the family stress coming from working from home. “The pandemic has forced this new setup, which can be quite stressful. I do understand where they’re coming from, especially since kids are doing virtual learning too.” The children are now work-from-homers too! Jomar has 4: Sean, Lucia, Earl, Alexa. So, expect interruptions in “your” work. “They’re not nuisances; they’re the people you choose to live with,” he says. And if you have a workplace, your children should have a study place themselves, separate from your workspace.

A work-from-homer? You are blessed! “It’s important to remind yourself of how fortunate you are to be freed from waking up too early, to be surrounded by the people you love.” And not have to deal with the office intrigues.

Frank A Hilario, Work For Whom (W4W)

With my W4W, I am enjoying what my son says work-from-homers should be enjoying: no commute, no office intrigues. And today I have only one child, graciela/ela at home and, a teacher, she is also into WFH.

Me, my work-for-whomers is defined by Filipino professionals and non-professionals leading, not leading, or misleading farmers in going about their farming, applying the Science of Agriculture. You will be surprised, as I have been, reading negativenews or views related to the cultivators of the soil.

Well, all that has made my work-for-whom exciting!

I have also taken upon myself the W4W teacher’s duty of encouraging journalists who are either non-performing in agriculture and/or not actively supporting Secretary of Agriculture William Dar’s “New Thinking for Agriculture” grounded in those “8 paradigms.” Despite big problems, The New Thinking has been Working Big.

If you ask me more about it, then you are one of those non-performing assets (NPAs) of Philippine Agriculture!@517

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[1]https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/11/08/weekly/the-sunday-times/filipino-champions/jomar-hilario-helps-filipinos-adapt-to-the-new-world-of-work/792761/?fbclid=IwAR1yitK7B3F7QLdkdfiVFA7S9sYMD874aCw-RC_gcVxqxxTwdoToHfSDcjs

Two Boys, SRO & Rene With PhilRice – Here Is A Celebration Of Lives

The background of the image above says: 

SRO Seminar Series –
Research Management & Institution Building.

SRO is Santiago Rigonan Obien, in barong, right, founding Executive Director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute, PhilRice, with headquarters in the Science City of Muñoz, where the seminar series is held during the anniversary celebration of PhilRice on the 5^th of November. Main photo was taken during this year’s 35^th celebration.

Rene is Tito Nato-Kuya Rene; his own effusive Facebook sharing is titled “33 Years of Partnership” – which means Rene came into the lives of SRO and PhilRice 2 years after PhilRice was created in 1985 by Executive Order of President Ferdinand Marcos.

Rene had a full-blown (and lucrative) appointment as architect with “a big firm working for projects in China” and he was “the CEO’s ‘anointed’.” Then SRO called, meaning his country called for him – he answered the call.

He does not say so, but Rene must have been the one who designed the PhilRice headquarters in Muñoz. (building image[1]from Rice Matters)

Rene writes further:

Taking notice maybe of how we scientifically placed our facilities combining integrity and aesthetics, we were sought by allies and (with my contributions), in considerable degree rose facilities of BAR, NDA, ATI. PhilMech and the regional office of BFAR in Iloilo (that) became the “compact model” for a biosafety laboratory in fisheries.

If you are good, people notice. If you are better, more people will notice more of you.

So, with the architecture of Agriculture-related PH government offices, as designer, Rene proved to be very good. Now, in the design of the acquired characteristics and relationships among human elements of the government offices, with SRO at the helm, PhilRice proved to be the best. In time, PhilRice was recognized as world-class.

Thank you, boys!

Now, let us talk about another designer life for PhilRice.

Towards the end of 2003, I was appointed an information consultant of PhilRice, which then was institutionally involved in the crafting of the mechanism and media to make the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture, OpAPA, come to life. OpAPA was the brainchild of William Dar as Director General of ICRISAT based in India. During my brief second stay at PhilRice, I designed in my mind how to bring to life OpAPA and in fact produced a pdf of an entire book of 200 pages titled The Geography Of Knowledge. I still have a good copy of it.

Now that Mr Dar is Secretary of Agriculture, with direct supervision of PhilRice, I want to resurrect my OpAPA design to bring science to the Filipino farmers and help them directly link to current knowledge on any aspect of their farming, whether in crops or livestock, as well as postharvest handling, processing and marketing. With funds from the DA, today money is no object.

OpAPA must be based in PhilRice. While rice is the staple, there is a need for farmers to engage outside the monoculture of rice, to enrich their farms and families, to lead good, sustainable lives.@517

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[1]https://ricematters.wordpress.com/about/

Cellphone Agriculture – To New UPLB Chancellor Jose Camacho’s Challenging 4 Cs, That’s My C Challenge

I admire new UPLB Chancellor Jose DV Camacho Jr’s executive example of simplifying broad and interconnected concepts that are now under his leadership. On Wednesday, 04 November 2020, Chancellor Camacho accepted the mace, symbolic of the transfer of power from his predecessor Fernando C Sanchez Jr who had been Chancellor in the last 8 years.

After that mace ceremony, Josephine M Bo says (Facebook sharing):

Chancellor Camacho promised that he will ensure that his administration’s initiatives will highlight the values of cooperation, collaboration, and consolidation... “Our programs will feature cooperation within UPLB’s colleges and units. We will manifest collaborations with institutions and organizations, both national and international. Our efforts will be consolidated and focused.”

Cooperation, Collaboration, Consolidation. Elsewhere he also mentioned Compassion. Yet, Chancellor forgot another C that is deeply rooted in UP Los Baños:

Communication for Development.

The fact is that UPLB has a College of Development Communication, DevCom. To understand – first look at the above image again, and you will see 3 stars in the background, representing:

Instruction
Research
Extension.

Today, I look at the UPLB function of Extension as embodied in DevCom. For all intents and purposes, DevCom is media, including blogs, websites, newspapers, magazines, news and other digital sources. Today, I recommend Extension extended to carry out Cellphone Agriculture. (cellphone image[1] from Iconpacks)

I am an alumnus of UP Los Baños, BSA major in Ag Education, 1965; Civil Service, Professional Level. Today, a blogger on my own, I am hoping to attract Chancellor Camacho into UPLB staff engaging in blogging in support of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar’s “New Thinking for Agriculture” along with its “8 paradigms” feeding the new thinkers – Modernization, Industrialization, Promotion Of Exports, Consolidation Of Small- And Medium-Sized Farms, Infrastructure Development, Higher Budget & Investment, Legislative Support, and Roadmap Development. UP Los Baños, starting as the University of the Philippines’ College of Agriculture, UPCA, in 1908, already has piles upon piles upon piles of reports of research undertakings conducted by scientists. Some of these manuscripts have been written down as scientific papers and published in technical journals. Published or unpublished, it is these research reports that are largely untapped for their scientific findings; they can be written into knowledge pieces and sets that can guide farmers and/or fishers in their efforts to produce food for Filipinos. After 100 years of UPLB research, I can imagine a mountain-high pile of such manuscripts to be explored by knowledge seekers within and without UP Los Baños.

Painstakingly, a knowledge bank can be built out of those knowledge bits, such as in food production, and combatting pest or disease. This digital library, open to anyone anywhere anytime, can be accessible by simple questions that will be translated by the digital app Q&A asker (application) readable with an ordinary cellphone – anyone with high school English can tap into and use the knowledge.

Cellphone Agriculture, my Challenge.
We call on Secretary of Agriculture William Dar,
another UPLB alumnus, for financial backstopping.

Unless Chancellor Camacho is afraid of a 5^th C!@517

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[1]https://www.iconpacks.net/free-icon/mobile-phone-760.html

Fact-Checking – “Small Farms Leading The Way Toward Sustainable Farming.” What About Sustainable Farmers?

Fact-checking is now a battle cry in local and international media, especially applied on political statements or claims made in public anywhere in the world.

Legitimate or not, not everyone can be a good fact-checker. I am lucky, as I just found out that I am an excellent fact-checker, because I have a very good background on the subject matter covered in the article: “Small Farms Are Leading The Way Toward Sustainable Agriculture[1]” written by ANN (Author Not Named) that I saw being shared on Facebook today, 04 October 2020 (main image above). To that statement made in the title, my instant reply was, “I don’t think so.” (Sustainable Lives image[2] from Newquayorchard.co.uk)

Fact-check:

(1)  Age of article: The article is more than 1 year old, published 18 April 2019. No problem with being up-to-date, hopefully.

(2)  Credibility of publication: The article appears in Agriculture Monthly, an online magazine edited by Filipino Magsaysay awardee for journalism Zac Sarian. A-OK that!

(3)  Truth of claim as stated in the title itself: I have to verify this as to (a) meaning – what the author ANN meant by “sustainable agriculture” and (b) extent of content to prove the truth in the title: “Small Farms Leading The Way Toward Sustainable Agriculture.”

Now then, the first thing I notice is that the article is very, very short – only 218 words including title! In fact, this entry is written above the first paragraph: “1 MIN READ.” Single-spaced, including title, all that text can be accommodated in only 1 page! The length immediately tells me that the claim in the title is inadequately substantiated by the content – which is not a proper journalistic practice.

An example of a sustainable practice… is planting rice plants in nutrient-rich nurseries to save around 40 percent of water used compared to traditional production methods.

Okay, that’s sustainable.

Other small farms adapted a radical redesign that involves techniques and practices such as those that minimize the disruption of the soil’s structure and biodiversity.

I agree, minimum tillage is sustainable. And so is conserving the biodiversity in the farm.

But sustainability of farming must lead to sustainability of decent lives of farmers & their families! Here, the current National Practice of Agriculture fails.

Today, millions of Filipino farmers live under the threshold of poverty. Because those millions of rice growers have:

(1)   problems with capital – e.g., borrowing from usurers;

(2)   problems with crops – e.g., insisting on monocultures;

(3)   problems with costs – e.g., not being business-minded;

(4)   problems with technologies and systems – e.g., overcrowding rice transplants;

(5)   problems with chemical inputs – e.g., applying wastefully;

(6)   problems with postharvest handling of farm produce – e.g., losing grains in sun-drying;

(7)   problems with marketing – e.g., allowing merchants to dictate the price of their produce!

The farming of most Filipino farmers is notsustainable. And that is why they have to follow “The New Thinking for Agriculture” as expounded by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar and contribute to a national effort of inclusive development – in which they are included!@517

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[1]https://www.agriculture.com.ph/2019/04/18/small-farms-are-leading-the-way-toward-sustainable-agriculture/?fbclid=IwAR1AHidcZS79R7LfAalIXFeAE-MhOxp_agHwyAmJbuA4mcckCgtVwu3FmFM

[2]https://newquayorchard.co.uk/sustainablelives/

For God & Country – Old Age, Senior Moments & Today’s Digital Lessons

This is An Open Letter From Frank A Hilario To Linggoy Alcuaz. From 80 To 72 Yo, On Writing For God & Country.

This is all about our enjoying our writing while enjoining our countrymen to behave wisely:
in my case employing modern knowledge in the fight for national development via agriculture;
in your case, employing classic freedom in the fight for deep-seated democracy.
(image of cross-heart[1] from Pinterest)

Ah but Linggoy, you cannot have one without the other!

I write in pursuit of “The New Thinking for Agriculture” as propounded by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, and you write in pursuit of true & honest democracy.

Frank A Hilario:
I am an agriculturist, UPLB ’65. In agriculture, I see media old, as has been outed since 45 years ago, when I started to found, one after the other, the 3 publications of the Forest Research Institute from 1975 to 1981: monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly popular color magazine Habitat.

Today, retired, I’m an indefatigable blogger in the field of agriculture, with at least 4,000 long essays of 1,000 words plus each, written since 2005. My latest blog where you are reading this is Brave New World PH– and I can see that you subscribe to it even if you didn’t know it exists!

Linggoy Alcuaz:
You are an indefatigable leader and voice in the field of popular democracy. I see your problem is less your audience appreciating you and more the process of your writing!

I am 80. I want to be remembered, with my 7-year old Lenovo laptop, as a modern media fighter for the emancipation of Filipino farming families from poverty into prosperity – and staying there forever and ever!

You are 72. You are “a staunch supporter of Democracy and Clean, Free and Honest Elections.”

Know what? You are not enjoying your writing, I can see that, even if you have a new Lenovo laptop. Now, I will assume that for writing you are using Word 2019; mine is Word 2016 – but you can learn from the older one!

You write:

Since I resumed my YTT column in OpinYon’s Flagship Edition on 7-13 September 2020, I have without exception exceeded my quota of 700 words.

You don’t know when to stop writing! Your word processor has a word counter at the bottom left – you never look at it. You should be the one cutting into continueds, or cutting out text, not somebody else, so that your mind remembers the part to be continued!

Linggoy, either you are forgetful, or you don’t know how to take good care of your docs. It’s not too late. If you intend to be writing columns well into your 80s and even 90s, as I do writing essays, you have to keep track of everything.

Now then, may I offer you an early Christmas gift? Email me your drafts and I will edit into continueds gratis et amore! Beginning now. (frankahilario@gmail.com)

Yes, our writings are to be continueds – For God & Country!@517

 

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[1]https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/361343570075961781/