My Missions ImPossible – Collecting & Communicating Knowledge Bits & Pieces In Anti-Farmer Poverty And Anti-Climate Change Agriculture, Then Digitally Extending The Same To People

In my country the Philippines, looking at Agriculture, I have long seen that there is a confusion of minds on the relationships among & between Instruction, Research & Extension.

Thus, UP Los Baños (UPLB) has 5 Vice Chancellors: Academic Affairs, Community Affairs, Student Affairs, Instruction, and Administration (UP Los Baños, uplb.edu.ph). But I don’t understand why there is also “Research And Extension Services” as well as “Research, Development, Extension” (ovcre.uplb.edu.ph).

In confusion, there is no strength!

Today, Friday, 16 Dec 2022 (Manila), I decided to pack in my decades-long blogging into 2 definite knowledge suitcases: “EarthMinds” and “The Editor In Chief.” The first blog has this “EarthMinds’ Mission: Digital Collection of Knowledge for anti-farmer-poverty & anti-climate-change Modern Agriculture. The second blog has this “The Editor In Chief’s Mission: Digital Extension of Knowledge in anti-farmer-poverty & anti-climate-change Modern Agriculture.”

“Clarity precedes success” – Robin Sharma.
(“Minds” from minds.org.sg), “Earth” from 123rf.com)

Actually, UPLB is not conducting when it should be conducting Extension. There is its College of Development Communication (DevCom), and should be the one engaged in communication for development – Extension – but DevCom is not into Extension. Unfortunately.

Wake up, UP Los Baños “Minds”!

And what about me who is only 1 person – how can I conduct extension services? Good question.

In 2003 if I remember right, Filipino Director General William Dar of ICRISAT based in India submitted to the agriculture science community a proposal he called Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture (OpAPA). It called for the creation of a “Knowledge Bank” as basis for extending explainable/explained scientific data & information to farmers and organizations. I was hired as a consultant, and I wrote & produced a digital 198-page “creation book” that I titled “The Geography Of Knowledge” (TGoK) – you have to travel the road if you want to learn.

Today, I can say that “The Geography Of Knowledge” is my 19-year old contribution to the world’s Agricultural Extension. Without a Knowledge Bank, there is much confusion.

Essentially, the concept of the Knowledge Bank that I advocated for OpAPA via TGoK is like this:

If I search for specific instruction, I would get it.

If I did not know what is to expect, such as if I wanted to learn more about hybrid rice, I would open the TGoK website and simply type “hybrid rice” (with or without the double quotes), and when I press Enter, the screen would show me images and/or icons – with or without words – and when I click on an image/icon, I am shown different images of rice with their hybrid names; when I click on an image, I am shown other images, such as Seeds, Seed Plots, Transplanting… I am on my way to learning!

The Knowledge Bank assumes that I do not know anything except, for instance, the name of a crop and I want to learn more about it. I do not have to know any technical terms beforehand in order to learn from TGoK.

Am I communicating?@517