How to talk to farmers about crop diversification?
Language counts. Metaphors count more. If you talk to farmers, incomes count most. Income diversification – how did I think of that?
This time, I go from crop diversification to GMO.
Where did I get all those ideas now? First, I was reading Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie about crop diversification. Manong Willie told the thousands of participants in the "18th National Vegetable Congress" on Tuesday, 08 October 2019, in Camalig, Albay[1]:
Today I would call it a rice-centric agricultural country, but we can never just live with rice alone; we need to diversify Philippine agriculture.
Then I was reading from Latin America, Alicia Quezada, Jeremy Haggar, Juan Torres & Rebecca Clements who jointly say[2]:
Crop diversification refers to the addition of new crops or cropping systems to agricultural production on a particular farm taking into account the different returns from value-added crops with complementary marketing opportunities.
Note that the authors are saying, crop diversification is the growing of "value-added crops with complementary marketing opportunities."
Today, if you said "GMO," the farmers might be interested in listening and finding out more of what you are about to say.
Well, I will leave the topic of Genetically Modified Organism, GMO, to others. Today, I want to talk about another GMO, my GMO:
Geographic Marketing Opportunities.
I got the idea when I noted what the Latin American authors (see above) inadvertently "translated" from agriculture: crop diversification to economics: complementary marketing opportunities.
Borrowing: "geographic marketing opportunities." GMO.
Where geographic means location-specific, or where the farm is, the village, town, province, or region.
Where marketing opportunities are, of course, multiple sources of income. Chances to earn much, chances to earn more.
Hearing about incomes, then the farmers in front of you will listen more carefully to more of what you have to say.
That is to how to sell crop diversification to farmers. You must talk about incomes, plural.
And yes, marketing here means group marketing or assisted selling of farm produce – not to merchants but to institutional buyers such as companies and supermarkets.
To farmers, do not talk about multiple crops; instead talk about multiple products to sell, multiple income sources.
Then you will get the farmers very much interested in your GMO!
I am using the image above, from the website of the Center for Crop Diversification of the University of Kentucky[3], as I did not find in any Philippine webpage an icon as simple and smart and striking as that American one.
Crop diversification. Let us talk about crop and livestock, which are very familiar to Filipino farmers, as they raise, if not a carabao now, some native chickens, some mallard ducks, some pigs, even some goats.
Of course, today it's mostly rice, rice, rice, rice – but that is exactly why you must talk about the GMO that every farmer must pay attention to.
Yes, crop diversification is income diversification – any farmer will listen to you if you talk that way!@517
[1] https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1082646
[2] https://www.climatetechwiki.org/content/crop-diversification-and-new-varieties
[3] https://www.facebook.com/ukaec/
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