15 Billion Trees Already Planted To Fight Climate Change – The Great Planet Fake News!

First, the official magnificent dreams:

To fight climate change, to plant
1,000,000 trees (1 million) – Philippines
1,000,000,000 trees (1 billion) – New Zealand
1,000,000,000,000 trees (1 trillion) – UN & Felix Finkbeiner, German

Philippines: ANN writes, "DENR, Couples For Christ To Plant A Million Trees" (Author Not Named, 28 April 2019, Rappler, rappler.com), by 2021. I wish them well.

New Zealand: Joe McCarthy writes, "New Zealand Wants to Plant 1 Billion Trees to Fight Climate Change" (14 August 2018, Global Citizen, globalcitizen.org), also by 2021. "New Zealand is getting closer to finalizing a plan to plant 1 billion trees, according to Stuff. The government allocated an additional $240 million to the project, bringing its total budget to $485 million over the next three years." I wish them well.

All over the world:Laura Parker writes, "Teenager Is On Track To Plant A Trillion Trees" (07 March 2017, National Geographic, news.nationalgeographic.com). Miss Laura is talking about Felix Finkbeiner, German teenager thinking to thrust 1 trillion trees throughout this terra. He has founded the group Plant for the Planet, P4P, working out its dreams. By 2020. I wish this boy joy.

Mark Tutton says Mr Finkbeiner founded the P4P in 2007 ("The Most Effective Way To Tackle Climate Change? Plant 1 Trillion Trees (17 April 2019, CNN, edition.cnn.com). Already, Mr Tutton says, with many countries, P4P has planted nearly 15 billion trees.

According to the calculations of Tom Crowther of Yale University, P4P science adviser, "Those (1 trillion) trees could absorb an additional 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year."

That's the bright side.
What's the dark side?
Nobody can plant a tree at all!

Like I wrote more than 1 month ago (see my essay, "The Greening Revolution! This Is How To Defeat Climate Change!" 24 February 2019, Journalism for Development, ijournalismfordevelopment.blogspot.com):

But nobody can plant trees – you can plant only a seed, seedling, or sapling, never a tree! You have to wait at least 15 years before you can declare you have planted a tree…

So, it is fake news to claim that the P4P group has planted 15 billion trees!

P4P itself has the facts to contradict that claim. Mr Tutton writes, "It can take 30 to 40 years of growth for the carbon storage to reach its full potential." So, you can claim to have planted a tree today only if you count in at least 30 years forward!

So? Plant a garden, not a tree!

It's not the tree that captures CO2 from the air – it's the leaf. The more leaves there are, the more CO2 sequestered. We need a trillion gardens, not a trillion trees.

Certainly, anyone can plant a garden, even a 5-year old. Certainly, if all citizens of the world simultaneously cooperated – think of all those vacant lots turning into small & big gardens of flowers, fruit trees, ornamentals, or vegetables – in 1 day, we can plant all empty spaces. In 30 days, those gardens will be able to cool the whole Earth, including any climate change-tree-advocate hothead!517

Since Male Farmers Are Hardheaded, Let's Cultivate The Female!

We Filipinos are very respectful of women, I'm proud to say – unlike most cultures. Why do we not encourage the women to become farmers? We honor them much. It's the backbreaking work, sometimes the night fieldwork when you want to make sure you have irrigation water all over the field for your rice. 

Irrigation. I'm the agriculturist around here, and the son of a farmer, so why did I not realize this a long time ago? It takes a lady, Caryl Levine, to tell this gentleman that, "Worldwide, most fresh water withdrawals are for agriculture, and the lion's share of that water goes to irrigate rice." I'm quoting from Miss Caryl's article "Changing How Rice Is Grown Around The World" published 22 April 2019 by the Fair World Project (fairworldproject.org).

"And this comes at a time when major rice-producing nations are suffering from increasing water scarcity." A major reason is El Niño; another major reason is that farmers are prodigal sons with irrigation water. Like my father Lakay Disiong was; he did not know any better – neither his agriculturist sons, plural. I graduated from the UP College of Agriculture and my brother Emilio graduated earlier from the Araneta Institute of Agriculture – both agriculturists were ignorant about the proper irrigation of rice.

Continuously, or even just continually flooding rice is a lazy man's way of getting rid of weeds and suspect pests that lay eggs on the soil. Miss Caryl says:

Flooded rice fields are also a major contributor to global warming. When soils are continuously covered in water and deprived of oxygen, they release methane gas which is a more powerful greenhouse gas in the short term than carbon dioxide.

So, before we complain about global warming, let's look under the feet of our farmers first!

On second thought, since Filipino farmers are male, maybe it's time to change the sex of our farmers – I mean, let's encourage more female farmers! But: Stop the male from telling the female farmers what to do in the manner of farming rice.

Can we grow rice with much less water? We should. Can we? Yes we can!

Now then, Miss Caryl says:

The good news is that there are solutions, like the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), which we have dubbed "More Crop Per Drop" so that consumers better understand what it is all about – essentially producing more rice with less water.

We must sow the seeds of modern water management in growing rice.

And that is where SRI comes in. With SRI, you sow less rice (seeds) and yet you harvest from 25% to 100% more rice (grains).

So, is SRI good for women farmers? Miss Caryl says yes. "With 80-90% fewer and lighter seedlings to transport and transplant, their burden is drastically reduced." In SRI, you transplant when seedlings are only 2 leaves old, not much older as usual. All in all, she says, SRI reduces field labor by as much as 47 times 8-hour days.

Night & day, I'd rather have love's labor's lost on my lady love!517

Philippine Environments – Of Forests, Senators, The Executive & Journalists

Environment is the richest word in Frank A Hilario's Dictionary today, Friday, 26 April 2019, and I thank a little Michael A Bengwayan for inspiring me, despite his intention! 

In his OpEd piece of Monday, 22 April 2019, "Philippine Environment Going The Way Of The Dodo, Hardly A Topic In Philippine Election – OpEd" (Eurasia Review, urasiareview.com), international Filipino scientist & journalist Mr Bengwayan laments about the physical environment in our country:

Its virgin forests are predicted to be gone in ten years, its seas are full of plastics, mining has degraded many mountains and polluted rivers and water sources, and deforestation is causing devastating floods. Yet, despite these threats, the state of the environment has not been a key issue with the Philippines heading to the polls on May 13.

In the "(Leader) I Want for Senator Forum" at the Ateneo de Manila University, none of the candidates spoke on how to solve the pressing environmental problems…

Ah, Mr Bengwayan, I as a science journalist in agriculture and forestry since 16 April 1975, or 44 years ago to the month, know that everyone has failed in the conservation of our forest resources:

President of the Philippines
Secretary of Natural Resources
Senators & Congressmen
UP Professors of Forestry
Science journalists like you and me!

On 10 August 2016, I wrote a Philippine official's prediction about our forests that I inserted in an unlikely topic, "Ted Turner, Media Man & Fabulous Farmer," 11 August 2016, Alternative Journalism, blogspot.com):

About the environment, I remember Agriculture Secretary Bong Tanco told us in the mid-1970s about the impending loss of the unique dipterocarp forests in the Philippines, saying "We have reached the point of irreversible decline."

We Filipinos have not learned in the last 44 years!

"We," Mr Bengwayan, like I said, includes you and me.

So, Mr Bengwayan, don't point fingers at the Senators in Waiting. I would blame more the journalists of the mass media like the Manila Times, Inquirer. Manila Bulletin, Philippine Star, ABS-CBN News, GMA News, and the local papers in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.

Instead, Mr Bengwayan, look into the mirror and smile!

First, you have to forgive yourself.

Next, you have to forgive President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, for keeping mum and/or knowing nothing about deforestation in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

Then, you have to forgive all those Secretaries of Natural Resources for failed leadership.

Then, you have to forgive all those Senators and Congressmen for minding only their businesses and excluding the business of keeping our forest resources growing instead of deteriorating.

Then, you have to forgive the UP Professors of Forestry for failing to convince government officials to act in favor of the wise use of our natural resources, especially indigenous forest species.

Then, you have to forgive us journalists.
Most of all, us journalists! Why?

We have utterly failed to harness the power of media, especially now digital media, to convince a critical mass of educated people to contribute to forest conservation.

If the audience has not learned, the mediaman has not taught!517

Du30 Is Telling PH Journalists To Stop Look Listen – But They Won't!

First things first: 

Do I love Du30? I do.
Do I love Dante Ang? I do.
I love my enemies!

Are Philippine journalists looking for enough ropes to hang themselves?

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, a non-journalist, has been trying to teach our Philippine journalists the basic lesson of "Stop Look Listen" – a sign you see in a railroad crossing. Meaning, "Cross at your own risk." Bus conductors are obliged to jump off the driver-immobilized transport to check for any approaching wheels of steel. They know what's good for their vehicles, and their passengers – bus & train.

Not Filipino journalists, not worried about their media and their staffs. They insist on meeting tit for tat, Truth for Truth. Like the Manila Times online and Rappler.

So, we have the news today, Thursday, 25 April 2019, where ANN says "Manila Times Editor Resigns Over 'Matrix' Story" (Author Not Named, 25 April 2019, Rappler, rappler.com):

Felipe "Ipe" Salvosa II tendered his resignation after Times owner and chairman emeritus Dante Ang fumed over Salvosa's Twitter post questioning the "matrix" story of Ang that identified the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Vera Files, Rappler, and the National Union of People's Lawyers as being involved in a plot to oust Duterte.

Journalists have become enemies of themselves, including Mr Salvosa, PCIJ, Vera Files and Rappler.

I have already warned Maria Ressa, CEO of Rappler, about digging for the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth! I have so far written 5 essays on Miss Maria and journalism; here is the first one: "Happy Valentine's Day, Maria Ressa! In Prison" (14 February 2019, Journalism for Development, blogspot.com).

Today, the Truth is fighting journalists like Mr Salvosa, Miss Maria and Ellen Tordesillas of Vera Files. And feisty former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales.

I learn today, via Facebook link, the news by Marlen Ramos: "Morales: Timid Press Is A Clear And Present Danger To Democracy" (Inquirer.Net, newsinfo.inquirer.net). She told the Second Conference on Democracy & Disinformation in Taguig City on Monday, 22 April:

What should we do to arrest the decay [of democracy]? We should assert our rights. We should not allow fear to overcome us. If you're afraid, then the more reason your rights will be trampled upon. I call upon all of you to raise your voice, to come up with dissent. Your voice should be counted. You can't [speak] in whispers. You should not be afraid. By raising your dissent, there's no crime committed.

The absence of check-and-balance mechanisms plus a timid press present a clear and present danger to democracy. One just has to rule by fear and intimidation to impose tyranny.

Our democracy is sick and truth-telling is the only antidote.

No! The way you look at the Truth is not the way Rotarians look at the Truth via the Rotary 4-Way Test, that which Zig Ziglar has improved upon via what I call his Truth Serum, the formula THINK:

True?
Helpful?
Inspiring?
Necessary?
Kind?

Journalists and judges looking for the Truth:
Proceed at your own risk!517

Cacao Davao – My Vision For Davao City As Cacao Capital Of The Philippines

Why not? 

On Facebook, I see the link to Tuesday's news by LHC, whoever that one is: "Davao City Allots P2M For Cacao" (23 April 2019, SunStar Davao, sunstar.com.ph), and I make this comment (verbatim):

2 million pesos to make davao the cacao capital of the country? that's coming from a cross-eyed view of things. it should be at least 2 billion, 2,000,000,000! and you can challenge me right now where that 2 billion should go to

Why only P2 million?

Januario Bentain, City Agriculturist Office... focal person, said the budget will be for the continued development of the industry after the city has been dubbed as the "Cacao capital of the country."

Bentain said a large portion of the budget will be for training expenses such as chocolate-making, product packaging and labeling, business plan preparation training, product marketing and management training, chocolate forums, among others.

Why not P2 Billion?!

Mr Bentain, I note that Davao City's P2 million will be largely for training, including forums. That, my friends, is thinking like a One-Eyed Jack.

Well, I'm challenging myself right now to come up with that 2 billion-peso plan, which I am right now calling:

Cacao Davao

Vision: Davao City as The Cacao Capital of the Philippines

Mission: Completely assist old & new cacao farms

Strategy: Provide active & full assistance in terms of:

(1) Cacao training

(2) Cacao production (farming)

(3) Cacao processing

(4) Cacao communication.

Slogan: Cacao Davao!

A short & smart slogan will move hands, hearts and minds from top to bottom.

If you don't know what a slogan can do, consider "Otso Diretso." It's short & smart – and unforgettable. "Diretso" has a double meaning: "direct (to the Senate)" and "straight," meaning those lady & gentlemen are upright citizens, not crooked politicians. (Oh, yes, I'm voting Otso Diretso!)

I know I'm not cut out to be so, but if I were the Cacao Davao CEO, I would know that P2 million is poor peanuts and not rich chocolate even for a multi-media campaign, including materials for these 5 P trainings:

(1) Planning: Business, considering costs & returns – comparing 3 options: chemical farming, organic farming, combined farming. Ownership: single owner, cooperative, corporate? Loan arrangements.

(2) Planting: Seedlings, grafts. Imported, native. Monoculture, multi-layer (agroforestry), under coconuts.

(3) Processing: Different products, formulas/mixes

(4) Profiting: Target market(s), market linkage(s), market control.

Don't forget:

(5) Promoting: Multi-media materials, including a magazine, website for Internet users comfortable with technical or popular or local language. Accessible 24/7.

Yes! Those 5 are all necessary to consider for your cacao industry (or any plant industry) not only to survive but to grow big, bigger, biggest.

So! You see, it's not easy for Davao City to become the real Cacao Capital of the Philippines. Or any other city for that matter.

Nice – and necessary to dream. After dreaming, you have to wake up and do whatever you have to do to make your dream come true.

Yes. If Davao City does all that, even the Small cacao farmers will become BIG!517

PH Agriculture: Is Modern Technology The Answer? No, It's Modern Thinking!

William Dar's latest Manila Times column, "PH Agriculture Ready For Industry 4.0?" (Part 1) online (25 April 2019, manilatimes.net) is an eye-opener to me, an agriculturist and a very wide reader. 

He is actually talking about 4 Industrial Revolutions: iR1, iR2, iR3, and iR4 (my designations).

He says: "(iR4) offers a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds." He answers the question in his title: "So far there are no clear answers."

Let us think some more!

He says, "One of the best examples today of (iR4) is the 'smart factory,'" with everything automated, and that includes the system making its own decisions via artificial intelligence, AI. Sorry, but the application of AI in such a food production system is not for me.

I love it when Mr Dar says that iR4 "can build on the technologies and systems of" previous industrial revolutions iR1, iR2, and iR3.

"(iR1) is much about mechanization, steam power and the weaving loom." Steam power? I'm thinking of the geothermal plant.

"(iR2) is about mass production, assembly lines and electrical, all of which are still in use today." Amen to all that.

"(iR3 is about) automation, computers and electronics." Aha. That's where I am today, the 3rd Industrial Revolution. I am an author, editor, and desktop publisher (the man, not the mouse). (Read about my latest commissioned desktop publishing project here: "Surprising Ba-i: Coffee-Table Book, Version 1.5" (23 April 2019, Journalism for Development, blogspot.com).

iR4 – what's in it for us? Mr Dar asks for agriculture: "So how do we take advantage of the unprecedented innovation accompanying (iR4) to rethink and transform our food systems?" I like his answer to his own question:

Working together: To make (iR4) take root in the agriculture sector, all agricultural and biosystems engineers need to work together to create a more sustainable food system that achieves solutions that are integrated and holistic, focused on local impact, innovative, and collaborative.

For integrated and holistic efforts:

We should push for land, water and energy use efficiency, and ecosystems and biodiversity management that are interrelated and need to be considered holistically in developing solutions.

For localized impact:

Solutions must support local communities, enhance livelihoods, and assure social and economic value to those connected to the food system.

For sustainability:

All products, technical, process and business model innovations should result in a more sustainable food and agriculture system.

For collaboration:

We must look at food and agriculture as a system, so we need to take a value network approach. So, collaboration among all stakeholders is essential.

What about approaches using iR4?

I suggest four approaches in "technologizing" agriculture under (iR4): producing differently using new techniques; using new technologies to bring food production to consumers; increasing efficiencies in the food chain; and incorporating cross-industry technologies and applications.

Following that and applying for rice only using old-new techniques, I would recommend: green farming(my term & advocacy), System of Rice Intensification, bubble drying of grains, and the combine harvester to reduce harvest losses.

Technology with thinking!517

It Takes A Village To Make A Healthy Soil

Annie Leonard & Tom Newmark say, "The Story of Soil Is The Story Of All Of Us" (22 April 2019, yes! yesmagazine.org). They are talking Science – isn't that talking Bible too?! 

In Genesis 1, NRSV, God made humankind in his image and likeness, Adam and Eve, and allowed them to "have dominion over" the fish, birds, cattle, wild animals, "every creeping thing" – that is why it was called the Garden of Eden, or Paradise. But they took God's word literally, and did not allow the soil to multiply itself by itself! So, poor banished children of Adam and Eve, we lost Paradise because we failed to learn conservation.

Ms Annie and Mr Newmark quote Wendell Berry as saying that the soil is "the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all." They say:

Ninety-five percent of our food is grown in it, it stores and filters our water and provides a home for the majority of life on the planet, and yet most of us rarely pay much attention to it. We dump poisonous chemicals on it, inject it with synthetic nutrients, slash it with plows, strip it of its natural diversity, and bury our trash in it.

Brilliantly, if not intentionally, in those 65 words, the female and male authors have summarized modern agriculture.

The soil grows 95% of our food, but we poison it, inject bad nutrients into it, ravage it with our plows, replace biodiversity with single crops, and poison it with our trash.

When did it occur, that change from Nurture to Vulture? Ms Annie & Mr Newmark say it could have been when humans invented Agriculture, or at "the Age of Enlightenment, when Nature became viewed as an object to be observed and controlled." Personally, I think the break from Nature began when Adam, not Eve, began to think Science over Nature. Adam had to investigate all things, to prove a hypothesis or pursue an assertion. Too intelligent for Paradise.

Today, even as Adams or Eves are doing Science, the Earth is prevented from doing its work naturally!

Ms Annie & Mr Newmark say when you promote soil health, you also promote community health. And when we nourish the very soil that continues to nourish us, we also nourish our village.

Why is plowing the field bad? The authors say when you expose the microorganisms that cause organic decay and expose all that life to oxygen and sunlight, when it rains, the good nutrients run off with the water.

Ms Annie & Mr Newmark say there should be permanent ground cover where we grow our crops to "optimize solar cycles and carbon capture" just as forests do.

Separately, Ms Annie says composting is the magic wand (my view) for turning organic waste into organic fertilizer; this is a practice that benefits the community – the village gets clean, and the soil gets dirty with rich, natural materials as healthy food for the crops and, ultimately, the humans.

We humans poison ourselves when we poison the soil where we grow our food.517

To Solve Climate Change, Look Beneath Your Feet – Jean-Paul Courtens

"Healthy soils for a healthy climate" – in 6 words, Jean-Paul Courtens gives us a simple guide towards resolving climate change. Above image is from the email linking to his article "What Have We Learned? Healthy Soils For A Healthy Climate" (02 March 2019, Real Organic Project, realorganicproject.org).

The email introduces Mr Courtens' video talk in these words: "Watch biodynamic farmer Jean-Paul Courtens of Roxbury Farm in Kinderhook, New York speak about (agriculture's) pivotal role in reversing Climate Change."

"Agriculture's pivotal role in reversing Climate Change." I have always believed that,if not said it in those words, since 2007, months before Al Gore along with the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize. (See my essay, "The Yankee Dawdle. On Discovery Sorghum, The Great Climate Crop," 04 February 2007, ICRISAT Watch, blogspot.com.).

As I write this, I check on Facebook and here comes my friend Joby Arandela sharing about regenerative agriculture, with the 6–layer graphic that begins to say: "For a farm in drought, the carbon left in the soil can be as low as 0.5–1%." You're not communicating, my dear – you're only scaring me.

I google for "regenerative agriculture" (regenerativeagriculturedefinition.com), and it begins to tell me about its "4 principles" – I find them too complicated for me, sorry! So back to Mr Courtens, who is now saying:

It's like what we need here is a "future thinking" – thinking outside the box. And we have to come up with something that will allow nature and help nature to come back in the equilibrium that we have disrupted.

It is the soil that will allow nature and help nature to come back. And Mr Courtens points to organic farming, "as it was intended is based on the fundamental principle of integrity; that everything in nature is interdependent, and that a farm is a living organism."

I remember Edward H Faulkner telling me something like that in his book Soil Development that I read in the 1960s, that the soil is, or should be, alive – alive with minute and not-so-minute plants and animals. Only a live soil is rich. Only a live soil will "help nature to come back in the equilibrium that we have disrupted."

Mr Courtens asks, "So isn't it safe to conclude that a healthy farm has most of its land covered?... And the best way to do that of course, is to cover it with grass and legumes and put some animals on it."

Even without animals and without manure from somewhere else, my soil should still be healthy with grasses and legumes growing. Trash farming is how Mr Faulkner put it. He taught me to incorporate weeds and crop refuse on the top soil, rotavating them with shallow bites of the blades so that the soil and plant matter are cut into pieces and mixed together to make a living mulch all over the field.

How important is that? Mr Courtens says 1% organic matter on 1.6 billion hectares is 102 billion tons of carbon dioxide sequestered.

Climate change, we've got you covered!517

PH Will Never Rise From Rice Alone – William Dar

First, I'm sorry, but the article by Louise Maureen Simeon on 15 April 2019, "DAR: Rice-Centric Model Will Never Be Successful" (The Philippine Star, philstar.com), is incorrect on 2 counts. One, DAR is notthe Department of Agrarian Reform that the headline implies – rather, it is William Dar; and I happen to know personally that Mr Dar is not "a former agrarian reform secretary" but a former Secretary of Agriculture. 

Next, the story has what I call a VIP – very important point – in the very title of the article itself: "Rice-Centric Model Will Never Be Successful." Filipino farmers have always built their farming around rice, rice, rice – and we never got out of that circle. Or, should I say, the brightest agriculturist never got to teach out of the box to PH farmers in the field.

As a point of view, "Rice-Centric Model Will Never Be Successful" has not been seen up to now except by an international expert in our midst, who is also a Filipino (if an Ilocano like me!) Mr Dar has been the most admired Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, which is based in India, so much so that the Indians retained him for 3 consecutive terms as DG, from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2014.

Miss Louise quotes Mr Dar as saying, "Not just in this administration, (but) over the last 30 years, producing (more and more) rice has been the goal and they did not give a chance for high-value agriculture to succeed."

As a guide to criticism, by saying "Rice-Centric Model Will Never Be Successful." Mr Dar means if we continue to view farming as being around rice and not much else, even if we were quite successful, we will always be a One-Eyed Giant – strong but with an incomplete view of the enemy.

Mr Dar said:

Even DA now, their mindset is only in (rice) production, they are still blinded and yet to change it to agri-business which is supposed to be the right approach.

We have to teach the DA people to be business-minded first of all!

As a guide to action, "Rice-Centric Model Will Never Be Successful" points to an option in farming that has always been there:

Rice-based is multiple cropping: Rice Plus. It is the Plus that counts!

As a BS Agriculture graduate from the UP College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, and being a wide reader, I know that rice-based is growing rice with any combination of these: eggplant, tomato, cassava, sweet potato, any other vegetable.

Mr Dar was speaking at the journalism seminar sponsored by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines & San Miguel Corporation, SMC. I know the SMC is also a benefactor of the Binhi Awards by the Philippine Agricultural Journalists, so I would like to challenge SMC management to gently but firmly demand that those PH journalists learn & disseminate more about the business of multiple cropping.

What's the one business sense of multiple cropping?
Win some, lose some!517

For PH Farmers To Thrive, They Should Be I-Oriented!

I saw the above tarpaulin in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan that I shot at 7:45 AM Wednesday, 20 March 2019. The sign says, "Pangasinan Entrepreneurs Development Association Inc," PEDAI, and the group is based in Malanay, Santa Barbara, Pangasinan. In Santa Barbara, we have the Agricultural Training Institute, ATI's Regional Training Center I, meaning RTC for Region 1. This is relevant to note, as the Ilocos Region covers 4 provinces: Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, and Pangasinan, and the 9 cities within: Alaminos, Batac, Candon, Dagupan, Laoag, San Carlos, San Fernando, Urdaneta, and Vigan (en.wikipedia.org). 

Today, I'm looking at ATI as digital, or it should be. I mean, any farmer should not need to travel from Asingan to Santa Barbara, or go to town to ask the Municipal Agriculturist for information & insights. What's the cellphone for?!

Yes, that tarpaulin tells me about agribusiness. And my favorite columnist writes about that very subject today Thursday, 18 April 2019: "Tourism, Agribusiness And Digitization" (Manila Times, manilatimes.net).

I know that the Philippines owes Department of Tourism, DoT, Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat for pushing for the brilliant idea of farm tourism. Mr Dar says:

(In 2018), the country’s tourist arrivals went up by 7.65 percent from the 6.62 million recorded in 2017. Sustaining the growth of tourist arrivals in the country can make tourism a major component for inclusive growth in the Philippines, especially if it forms part of the tourism-agribusiness-digitization paradigm.

And that is what I mean when the PH farmer should be I-Oriented (my coinage), as follows:

Income-oriented, IO.
Internet-oriented, IO².

The PH farmer is returns-oriented, not aware of his need to be IO; nor Internet-oriented, not aware of his need to be IO² too. Agribusiness and digitization are what he needs to get much more from farming.

Mr Dar says:

Agribusiness is definitely the only way for the farming (sector) in the Philippines to level up, and this means putting (an) end to the old paradigm that is anchored on traditional farming.

And how do we encourage that? Mr Dar says:

The old paradigm also emphasized supplying the local market with largely raw food products with very little or no support or incentives given to tap the export market.
Agripreneurship and agribusiness go hand-in-hand, and… the farmers themselves should also be encouraged to become agripreneurs.

Our farmers must go beyond supplying unprocessed food and be incentivized into growing produce processed into products for export.

Even so, we must make "agribusiness inclusive," as Mr Dar puts it. And how to do that? He says, "I recommend the Inclusive Market-Oriented Development (IMOD) that was part of the crosscutting strategies of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics when I headed it from 2000 to 2014." I know IMOD, as I was international consulting writer for ICRISAT 2007-2014; in IMOD, farmers get their fair share from the value chain, being their own middlemen.

Working for IMOD, and being IO and IO² are the secrets of agribusiness ATI must learn, then digitize, to make available to PH farmers nationwide simultaneously!517