iVirtual Guru – Frank A Hilario Teaches You Organic Farming You Do Not Appreciate!

In the above image, shared on Facebook, PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie spoke at the 6th Regional Cordillera Organic Agriculture Congress at the Benguet Agri-Pinoy Trading Center, BAPTC, in La Trinidad on Friday, 20 September 2019. Among other things, he was saying: 

Ako ay sumusuporta sa paglago ng Organic Agriculture dito sa bansa. Ang hiling ko lang, huwag nating gawing isang relihiyon ang Organic Agriculture.

(I support the growth of Organic Agriculture here in the country. My only request is we do not make a religion out of Organic Agriculture.) My translation.

"We do not make a religion" – I suppose Manong Willie is referring to fanaticism, where people claim that only organic agriculture will save the country, not to mention resolve the climate change crisis.

Funny, but I Frank A Hilario am the one who first brought attention in the Philippine Islands to the concept of organic farming already being contested in the United States, through the books of Edward H Faulkner, Plowman's Folly (published 1943), and Soil Development (1952), a copy of each which I found when I ransacked the open shelves of the UPCA Library. I have never been afraid of new ideas. I introduced it in the student paper Aggie Green & Gold of the University of the Philippines' College of Agriculture, UPCA, sometime in 1966, when I was Substitute Instructor for Horticulture. But it did not take root. In 1968, I applied and was accepted for a teaching position at the Xavier U College of Agriculture in Cagayan De Oro City, and of course I wrote all 4 syllabuses of the Horticulture classes I taught: Floriculture(flowering plants), Olericulture(vegetables), Ornamental Horticulture(leafy ornamentals), and Pomology (fruit trees). For the record, one of my A students then, Nicanor "Nicky" Perlas, went on to win the alternate Nobel Prize called "Right Livelihood Award" and he remembers all too clearly and still has copies of those syllabuses. Nicky says, "Thank you for infecting me with organic farming."

Is organic farming a religion to me? Well, I do not try to tell people that it is guaranteed 100% to be their Savior!

Here is somewhat religion to me: At the lower half of the composite image above is the cover of my ebook in Paradigms Lost, in Paradigms Regained, 269 pages, my literary-literal explanation and exposition of Mr Dar's "Eight Paradigms" embodied in his "New Thinking for Agriculture" that is his roadbook (my term) to the new PH Agriculture under him as new Secretary of Agriculture. (Email me for a free copy: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

In fact, I have a version of organic agriculture that is 100% different from those organic fertilizer evangelists who more or less equate organic farming with the use of organic fertilizers. Organic fertilizers are not necessary in my kind of organic farming.

In my agriculture, either chemical fertilizer or organic fertilizer is an option, not a given; it is a choice, not a commandment. Instead of using fertilizers, I prefer to build the natural richness of the soil.@517