PH Agriculture – “A Science With A Farmer’s Face Riding High With Family” Hopefully Under President Ferdinand “BBM” Marcos Jr

A for Agriculture. “One of the main drivers of our push for growth and employment,” President Ferdinand “BBM” Marcos Jr said in his State of the Nation Address (SoNA) on Monday, 25 July 2022, “will be in the agricultural sector.” As an agriculturist, my personal vision is: “A science with a farmer’s face riding high with family.”
(my photo taken 2017, edited)

In his SoNA, BBM spoke of assisting farmers financially and technically. The Department of Agriculture (DA) will extend loans, buy farm inputs in bulk – including fertilizers, seeds, feeds, fuel; and will provide financial assistance as desirable. He said in so many words: “We will strengthen the value chain that begins with the farmer and ends with the consumers.”

BBM equated climate change with agriculture, saying:

The production of farm inputs or needs of farmers to develop their farms will be planned as according to simultaneously addressing the challenge of climate change and global warming. (from BBM’s Tagalog to my English)

2 simultaneous DA challenges: farmer poverty and climate change. For my vision, I borrow from the 2000-2014 powerful slogan “Science with a human face” with which Director General William Dar brought the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) from dead last (kulelat) to #1 among 15 international science centers, including IRRI. ICRISAT showed the world what “A science” could do.

That explains the image above and my 10-word vision: “A science” has double meaning: “A” for “Agriculture” and “A” for “Superior” or “Outstanding” science. A farmer should be as prosperous as to be able to afford a motorcycle for his family or a tricycle for hire.

The A science of Agriculture that I am convinced the Philippines needs is called “Regenerative Agriculture,” as it is a method of farming that “improves the resources it uses, rather than (destroys or depletes) them, according to the Rodale Institute” (quoted by Climate Reality Project (CRP), climaterealityproject.org/, edited by me).

As an agriculturist, I look at Regenerative Agriculture as A Major Savior of the Planet. According to the CRP above:

The agriculture sector is one of the biggest emitters of CO², the greenhouse gas (GHG) most responsible for the changes we are seeing in our climate today. Together with forestry and other land [uses], agriculture is responsible for just under 25 percent of all human-created GHG emissions.

Agriculture Guilty!

From reading, I know that the agriculture GHGs come from chemical fertilizers: carbon dioxide (CO²), methane, and nitrous oxide. That is why I espouse Regenerative Agriculture which, among other things, employs organic fertilizers:

Zero GHGs!

Organic fertilizers come from nature, most especially from crops harvested from and animal wastes in the farm.

If you apply Regenerative Agriculture, you can expect “A science with a farmer’s face” to produce prosperous farmers.

BBM’s Government will not run out of funds for agriculture promoting solely Regenerative Agriculture – because materials to make organic fertilizers are not imported because the once-living matters are available everywhere. From the dead comes life – how about that!@517