“The Glad State Of Filipino Farmers” – In Dealing With The Climate Crisis, With The Powers We Have In Our Minds & Hands, With Current Science & Technology, How Do We Make Our Farmers Happy Male Or Female?

In the field of Agriculture, people worry: the knowledgeable about Climate Crisis, farmers about destruction by typhoons of crops & dwellings, and scientists about declining yields. How do you resolve all that?

Last Thursday, I blogged my essay titled “’Copy Our Neighbors’ – Advice From Former NEDA Chief Cielito F Habito. My Advice: A Bigger DA Budget With Additional P50 Billion For Barangay-Based Organic Options” (21 April 2022, Towards A New Eden, Blogspot.com).

Among other things, I proposed an organic agriculture program I called “Barangay-Based Agriculture Revitalized with Organic Options Advancing Basic Intelligence In Living Intimately with Nature (BARO A BILIN) – Ilocano to English: “New Instructions.” I proposed an additional budget for the Department Of Agriculture (DA) of P50 Billion for BARO A BILIN alone.

On Facebook, 3 commented and 2 did not approve of the idea. How un/lucky can you get! Anyway, let’s hear from them:

Retired UPLB professor Teodoro “Ted” Mendoza commented:

Not that quick Frank. Soil OM [organic matter] has declined from.40 to 60%. Return all OM or crop residues is not enough. There is a need to add more to avoid yield drop.

Ted Mendoza is saying that all soil OM must be returned, or suffer the predictable yield decline.

Former PhilRice Executive Director Santiago R Obien (SRO), also UPLB alumnus, commented:

Agriculture – we balance the science and technology – the universe of plants and animals cannot be simplified into just one factor like Organics. We go step by step – it’s not elimination but balancing!

Perhaps SRO was overwhelmed by my proposed P50,000,000,000 budget for organic agriculture, so he failed to notice that BARO A BILIN is an additional program, not designed to replace all programs of the DA. Neither did I say we eliminate chemical agriculture (CA) at once!  

A third reader and another UPLB alumnus, Reynaldo Mendoza commented:

For rice alone, it may be difficult to give some "straight/blanket" OM figures. As of 1998 (if I remember right), PSB/PH Seed Board has 220 Different Rice cultivars/ecotype recommendations. C4 is still around😀😀!! (Source: DA/ATI/BAR).Cheers!!

At least I can cheer somewhat. I’m glad Rey Mendoza points out that there are a great number of rice varieties/cultivars to choose from if you were worried about yields.

Whatever. I must emphasize that the last worry should be crop yield when resorting to organic agriculture – the first worry should be farmer income!

Even assuming that the yield of the crop decreases, the total cost of organic agriculture is much lower than the total cost of chemical agriculture!

Gentlemen, never forget costs & returns. Therefore, with organic fertilizers much cheaper than chemical fertilizers, the farmer’s net income goes up even if his yield goes down!

Organic agriculture rewards the farmers, enriches our bodies with healthy foods – and impoverishes the climate of its greenhouse gases. With OA, aren’t we glad we are thrice winners?!@517
(Images: “Sad State of…” YouTube.com, “Happy farmer” Freepik.com)