First, our farmers remain individualistic, unorganized and thus are not linked directly to markets. Second, our farmlands are small and fragmented.
Me! Not We. Yes, individualistic – the kind of Filipino farmers that PH journalists keep on cultivating! If Inadvertently.
(“Me We” image[2] from Reason)
“You there, as a farmer you too, U2 will succeed if you follow this farmer’s example.”
Note that “U2" is the very successful Irish musical band. U2 is Irish, became and still is wildly successful, with Bono as lead singer[3] (Wikipedia). The truth is that since 1976, when U2 was formed, no other band has succeeded like it has, including The Beatles.
Why am I talking U2 here? There is another historical development that has been actually limiting farmer success – the #1 kind of story that some journalists come out with, the one I call here the You Too, U2 Story.
Lesson: A U2 story, whether about a farmer or the Irish band, cannot be easily duplicated. So, Mr U2 Journalist, from now on don’t tell me I have not warned you about writing another U2 story!
(“Storytelling” image[4] from Rockcontent.com)
The formula of some journalists, the U2 formula of writing a farmer success story, began some 60 years ago. I was around, physically watching, when that formula was being concocted at the Department of Agricultural Communication, now DevCom, at the University of the Philippines’ College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños – it was a Peace Corps Volunteer who was teaching journalists how to write aggie success stories, the one I am now calling U2 stories. (By the way, that Peace Corps Volunteer happened to be Irish-American, what a coincidence!) It is not the copycat U2 farmer who will be successful; if the journalist writes enough U2 stories, he will win an award, a national or even an Asian award for his journalism.
You tell the farmer “U2!” That is the everlasting, if unexpressed, message written by the PH journalist when s/he writes about someone who has succeeded financially in his/her farming. The message of the U2 story is this:
If you follow this farmer’s example, you too will be quite successful!
No Sir/Madam! The farmer must find his own formula to succeed in his own farming. Financial and intellectual resources are not the same. UP Los Baños teaches good farming but not how you can become a financially successful farmer – and continue doing it, to lift yourself out of poverty!
Those journalists, (al)most of them love to feature stories of financially successful individuals (rarely families) in agriculture. I forgive them – They know not what they do! Those journalists do not realize that they are celebrating individualism among farmers. May their tribe decrease! (I mean the journalists.)
Please, no more U2 stories for farmers. The story the good journalists must write must be of successful farmers in an association, group or cooperative. No more, no less!@517
[1]https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/national/fragmentation-individualism-make-philippine-agriculture-uncompetitive/ar-BB19PyiW
[2]https://reason.com/2017/08/04/individualism-increasing-across-the-worl/
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2
[4]https://en.rockcontent.com/blog/thought-leadership-long-form-storytelling-content-marketing-success-2/
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