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 Published or unpublished, it is these research reports that are largely untapped for their scientific findings; they can be written into knowledge pieces and sets that can guide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