Among The Outstanding Filipino (TOFIL) Awardees 2024, William Dar Is My New Agriculture Secretary!

Yes: Primate Change for Climate Change!

In a Facebook post I saw Friday, 26 April 2024 on “The Outstanding Filipino (TOFIL) Laureates” (top image), William Dollente Dar was/is 3^rd on top. I was not surprised. What I have been surprised is that, even as I finalize writing this, this mid-morning of Sunday, April 28, some 2 days later, not a single one of the Philippine newspapers, including digital news media, has written of TOFIL 2024 – our media people are not interested in the world and works of outstanding Filipinos?!
Mum on TOFIL – Where are you
BusinessMirror?
BusinessWorld?
Manila Bulletin?
Manila Times?
Philippine Daily Inquirer?
Philippine Star?
Rappler?

PH Agriculture needs a Visionary Leader – and you are looking at him right now, framed in my photograph of 2018 when he was speaking before the crowd gathered in Pampanga by RiceUp, a group of level-headed activists dedicated to improving the lives of rice farmers. (He in turned invited me, that is why I was there.)

Above, intentionally, I took the lower image to dramatize the personality of Mr Dar as a leader: visionary, inspiring, directional, trusting.

He graduated with a BS in Agriculture major in Ag Extension from the Benguet State University. He earned a PhD in Horticulture from UP Los Baños.

Mr Dar knows human poverty – His family could not afford to send him to college but his Uncle Osting did; thank God for relatives who recognize potentials and demonstrate that they care!

Mr Dar knows institutional poverty – When he became Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in 2000, based in India, ICRISAT was dead last among the international agricultural institute members of the CGIAR Group. He inspired his ICRISAT staff with his Vision, “Science with a human face” – and soon, ICRISAT was the #1 CGIAR member!

Mr Dar knows digital poverty – When he was still Director General of ICRISAT, more than 20 years ago, Mr Dar submitted a proposal he called Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture (OpAPA). OpAPA was meant to be worked on by Philippine agriculture bodies such as the Department of Agriculture, PhilRice, and UP Los Baños. I was a consultant of PhilRice at that time, and I was excited to write a digital book on how to make OpAPA a reality in the digital world; I titled my book The Geography Of Knowledge (TGoK). Nothing came out of OpAPA and TGoK – the Filipino agriculturists are not interested in teaching Filipino farmers digitally?

In the Facebook post of TOFIL, below the image, it proudly proclaims: “Planet vs Plastics: We are the Architects of Renewal.”

I agriculturist & teacher (UPLB Ag Edu 1965) believe that:

(1) It’s not “Planet vs Plastics” – rather, it’s “Planet vs Planters.” We humans have destroyed so much of Earth’s vegetation and are keeping our farms bare, absorbing and reflecting the sun’s heat.

(2) The leadership of the Department of Agriculture needs renewal right now! The Philippines needs a Secretary of Agriculture who thinks rich – rich farms, rich farmers, rich villages!@517

This Is An Emergency! So Why Are UP Professors Contented With A Book Of Warning?

“Ten years to climate emergency” is the overall message of the book Climate Emergency In The Philippines (Impacts And Imperatives For Urgent Policy Action) coming out next month, May 2024, edited by University of the Philippines’ professors Kristoffer B Berse, Juan M Pulhin and Antonio La Viña (SpringerLink, link.springer.com). Waiting for 10 years myself? No, I’m coming out with this call-for-action now!

“(Their) book provides a snapshot of the manifestations of the climate emergency in the Philippines from a wide array of disciplines including physical sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities, management, and law. Researchers and faculties at the University of the Philippines contributed to this compilation, where each chapter provides policymakers and the public a clear picture of why climate change must be confronted with a sense of urgency and near-desperation.”

I, an alumnus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, am surprised that the 3 gentlemen’s book stops short of enumerating and discussing what may be done by us people right now! I say: “The heat is on! It’s an emergency!”

Differently & thankfully, non-Filipino Lisa Ray points out “Eco-Friendly Technology In IT” (22 July 2016, LinkedIn, linkedin.com, source of bottom image):

What is eco-friendly technology (as a whole)? … This technology basically helps to preserve our environment through gaining efficiencies in energy and reducing the harmful waste.

Thankfully, Ms Lisa enumerates:

Eco-friendly technology includes recycling of biodegradable material and producing goods with a material that can be recycled. Use of material which is plant-based has also gained momentum. There has been reduction in use of polluting substances by replacing them with environment-friendly alternatives. The manufacturers and industries have reduced the emission of greenhouse gases to serve the purpose. Renewable energy and energy efficiency are the focal points for all environmentalist(s) and nations at large.

Attaboy, Lisa! I repeat: “Renewable energy and energy efficiency are the focal points for all environmentalist(s) and nations at large.”

In the meantime, I appreciate much Leo Appleton & Nick Woolley’s book, The Role Of Academic Libraries In Climate Action

(15 July 2023, Taylor & Francis Online, tandfonline.com). I quote:

This (material) has been written to serve as a stimulus for discussion and as a call to action for our profession, academic and practitioner, to take stock and reflect if we are doing everything we can in response to the twenty first century climate emergency and the wider opportunity and challenge to embed environmental sustainability into our practice of academic librarianship.

And here is for the academic libraries of the University of the Philippines:

Academic libraries, through their centrality are ideally placed to be the place and platform where discussion, debate and knowledge exchange around sustainability takes place. We already have the information and knowledge infrastructure, and given the growing focus and commitment on place and civic role of universities, this can be extended beyond our university communities where we already may have significant membership. Academic libraries are well placed to function as multi- and inter-disciplinary platforms…

Academic libraries should not be merely academic!@517

Double Great Sunsets! How Great Can You Create A Coffee-Table Book, Anyone?

Anybody wants to produce a coffee-table book? I could tell you all about how to before you make the very first of a thousand steps!

Above, you are looking at either a sunrise or a sunset, depending on your mood. Actually, they are the same photograph that I took probably in 2017; it’s the same photograph from my Lumix FZ100, but viewed in 2 separate monitors – the left on the monitor of my Lenovo laptop, the right on the bigger monitor ViewSonic 20-inch LED.

I love taking photographs, among other things. I love writing, rewriting, editing, re-editing. I love desktop publishing (DTP), DTP being the one you do before you print your magazine or book.

You have to love what you’re doing to be doing great!

How do you do a wonderful coffee-table book for your group or office? You start with a wonder-promising script! That is to say, you start with someone who has been writing for years and years – or someone who shows promise.

How do you write a coffee-table book? First, you have to know the background story of the office and of the officers. Then how the office came to be what it is now. As much as possible, look for the exciting part of the story and begin the book from there!

I bought that Lumix FZ100 from the cash advance I got from the Agricultural Credit & Policy Council (ACPC). I’m talking of early 2012. I started collecting photographs from the field on the many successful loan projects of the ACPC, to produce its 25^th anniversary coffee-table book titled “The Filipino Farmer Is Bankable” – 150 pages, each reading page with a photograph. To collect more images, I travelled to Northern Luzon, mid-Visayas (I cancelled Mindanao at the last minute). Now then, about half of the images came from my FZ100.

A silver book for a silver anniversary, I dare say!

Where did I get my photo perspectives? In 1967-68, when I taught at Xavier University College of Agriculture in Cagayan De Oro City, I frequented the Xavier library, and studied the paintings of the masters: wide angles, cropping, lighting, highlighting etcetera. I probably was the first-ever photographer anywhere to report that I learned my photography much from paintings!

January to March 2012, I was on a journey to collect information, ideas and images to put into the inspirational coffee-table book that I produced for the ACPC, having been engaged by its Executive Director Ms Jovita Corpuz to produce the volume for the silver anniversary celebration of the ACPC in April. I had only 3 months to produce that book. With my decades of writing experience in science, and with that Lumix camera, I delivered!

I don’t remember being so happy doing a project for somebody else whom I met for the first time. (See also my essay, “The Old Man And The C. Or, How To Produce A Coffee-Table Book In 8 Weeks,” (27 April 2012, Frank A Hilario, blogspot.com). When you are happy doing, you do great work!@517

UN Declares “Race To Zero.” Unheroic, I Say. FAH Declares “Race To Hero!”

Let Frank A Hilario be “The Modern Boy Who Cried Wolf!” If people don’t believe me, there goes Aesop’s fable.

(image: sorry cannot now locate source)

To those who don’t know FAH, let me introduce myself. I’m an Agriculturist, BS Agriculture major in Ag Edu 1965, UPLB, 2.36 weighted average (I had a few “1’s”). I passed the very first Teacher’s Exam, given in 1965, with 80.6%, Professional Level.

Before all that, already in high school, Rizal Junior College in Asingan, Pangasinan, I cultivated the habit of reading, reading, reading! Classics in the English language from America, Asia and Europe. My wide reading included “Bannawag” and “Liwayway” and “Bulaklak” and “Tagalog Klasiks,” among other local publications.

At the open shelves of the library of UPLB, I found the twin books of American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner: “Plowman’s Folly” and “Soil Development” written before the 1960s. The first book explains why plowing is wrong – it buries the richness of the field. The second book tells of how the soil can be enriched by trash farming and such.

Now then, let Frank A Hilario be “The Modern Boy Who Cried ‘Race To Hero!’” The Hero here is the farmer who practices any combination of the 13 in the RA list I gave above.

No, regenerative agriculture is not taught in any of the 112 State Universities & Colleges (SUCs) in the Philippines (governmentph.com). Not even at UPLB. Nobody knows? Nobody is telling!

I’m talking Agriculture; here’s what I mean.

So we have heat waves, because of “El Niño.” So the United Nations has declared that what the world needs to do to save itself from extinction is: “Race To Zero” carbon emissions.

What the UN is not saying – not seeing? – is that carbon dioxide emissions, from fossil fuel combustion from any source, is only one source of climate change. Wikipedia says methane is the 2^nd major source of heat that causes climate change (en.wikipedia.org).

And what is the major source of that methane? Pete Smith, Dave Reay & Jo Smith say it’s agriculture (20 Sept 2021, “Agricultural Methane Emissions And The Potential Formitigation,”  royalsocietypublishing.org):

Agriculture is the largest anthropogenic source of methane (CH4)… The main sources are enteric fermentation, manure management, rice cultivation and residue burning.

Don’t tell me the UN is blind to the emissions of greenhouse gases (plural) by Agriculture!

Now then: “Race To Zero” is the wrong race.

It should be: “Race To Hero!”

That is what I am declaring thereby. Let us rescue ourselves from Climate Change by Primate Change, people! Let us abandon Chemical Agriculture (CA) and instead practice Regenerative Agriculture (RA). What we need is not “Climate-Smart Agriculture” but “Primate-Smart Agriculture!”

Look at my RA list of practices:

1, Compost application
2, Cover cropping
3, Crop rotation
4, Farm crops + tree crops (simultaneous)
5, Green manuring
6, Intercropping
7, Multiple cropping
8, No-till farming
9, Ratooning
10, “Three Sisters” cropping (corn + beans + squash)
11, Trap cropping
12, Trash mulching.

What can we do with CA that we cannot do with RA? Nothing!@517

Laguna Province Honors Her Artists & Their Arts In An Unbelievably Massive Manner!

I’m holding/not holding the book “Dakilang Lagunense: The Art And Artists Of Laguna” copyright 2022 by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the Republic of the Philippines. There is no Editor In Chief, but many Editors listed: Edwin S Estrada, Rhodora M Joaquin, Fe T Apon, Eilenee M Arqueza, Jeremie P Credo, Andrea Kristine G Molina, Jemimah Joanne C Villaruel. Figuratively – and literally – it’s a 270-page huge & hell-of-a-heavy book (10 kilos?). I love it because with this book, FSI celebrates artistic genius, if only in Laguna!

ANN (Author Not Named, undated, PH Foreign Service Institute, fsi.gov.ph) says:

In celebration of the National Arts Month, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) launched Dakilang Lagunense: The Art And Artists Of Laguna on 21 February 2023 at the Cultural Center of Laguna, Sta Cruz with the support of the Provincial Government of Laguna. The art book features 65 master and contemporary artists who trace their roots or reside in Laguna. It forms part of the Dakila Series which aims to feature different facets of the Philippines’ cultural heritage, including – among others – artists and their contributions to continuing art development and promotion.

And since there are too many artists featured (65), and since the family of Frank & Amparo (Ampy) Hilario with 13 children celebrated the birthday of Paul Hilario yesterday, Thursday, 11 April, who is now 52 years old, and who is featured in the book on pages 220-223 – I write mostly on Paul’s artworks.

Now then, our son Paul has had buyers of his art pieces not only in the Philippines but also in Europe and in the US. He has a website, “The Art Of Paul Hilario” (paul-hilario.pixels.com) where you can view a total of 186 paintings. I love them all not just because I am the father of the artist but because I love artworks that are  impressionist or post-impressionist.

I’d like this also to be a lesson for mothers.

Not to forget that his grandfather Gabriel Reynoso was a commercial painter, I must point out that it was his mother, Ampy, who noticed the potential of the boy Paul Benjamin when she saw him “painting” the walls of the apartment we were renting. Thereafter, his mother enrolled him in a nearby art class for youngsters – and that began Paul’s journey from painting graffiti to impressionistic art.

The book launching was attended by former FSI Director-General Jose Maria A Cariño, Laguna Governor Ramil Hernandez, Provincial Administrator Dulce Hilario Rebanal, and Laguna Tourism Culture Arts and Trade Office Officer-in-Charge Pamela Jane P Baun, with 42 of the 65 featured artists.

The unemphasized importance of the volume Dakilang Lagunense is that of underscoring the intellectual contributions of artists in a society, nay in an entire province.

In science, Laguna has UP Los Baños, the Department of Science & Technology and Department of Environment & Natural Resources, but none of these offices emphasize their necessary artistic works – pity! I was The Editor In Chief of the publications of the Forest Research Institute (now ERDB), but time flies!@517