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