Thinking of how to move knowledge to help Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie move the new PH Agriculture from Poverty to Prosperity for All, I have been studying the power of the Web. Surprise! I found 2 Webs instead, where a web is a network of relationships:
(1) The Internet
(2) The Multi-Purpose Cooperative.
(2) The Multi-Purpose Cooperative.
Internet as 1st Web? For the connecting flow of knowledge in Agriculture.
Cooperative as 2nd Web? For the connecting flow of work from seed to spoon.
With its webinar series called SOLVE – SEARCA Online Learning & Virtual Engagement – SEARCA has made the Internet a farm & firm reality what has only been dreamed of by state colleges & universities in the Philippines, like UP Los Baños, where its headquarters have been located in the last 50 years.
To be reached and enriched, what remains is for farmers to become active members of a supercoop so that they can be supported completely starting from obtaining the quality seeds to sow up to marketing farm produce & products to obtain their proper profits. (I first wrote about the Supercoop 5 years ago: “The Supercoop[1],” Common Cause.)
Lockdown or no lockdown, the New PH Agriculture must move, not hurriedly but constantly, for better and for better. Which crop, field, time, method? Knowledge is power!
The average Filipino farmer thinks he has gotten away with his choices, and he is an industrious fellow, but he is still poor. He has no friends, only friendly people who take advantage of him from seeds to selling.
The constant flow of the Internet will tell & sell the Filipino farmer on the need not only to think but act as a businessman all the time – which the farmers find hard to do! The cultivator is industrious when it comes to work, but his mind is lazy when it comes to mathematics.
In CNN’s news report, “Gov’t Must Focus On Agriculture Sector For Long-Term Sustainability, Says Commerce Leader[2]”(30 April 2020), George Barcelon, President Emeritus of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said the Department of Labor had announced they were targeting 1 million jobs in the provinces after the lockdown.
I say those million jobs or more will have to come from Agriculture; thus, the urgent need for Webmasters in Agriculture and Industry!
Mr Barcelon said PH must focus on agriculture for long-term sustainability, and I thank him a million times for saying that! Mr Barcelon is thinking of PH’s “high food import dependency,” and so he says, “focus must be given to the agriculture sector when dealing with the coronavirus impact on the economy.” He is thinking starting from cultivating the lands up to cultivating the markets here and abroad.
Mr Barcelon also said the Philippines is “lagging behind other countries due to lack of productivity and infrastructure” – and that’s exactly why we need the infrastructures of the Internet and Supercoop, not only farm-to-market roads and warehouses and the like.
Smoothly flowing networks of knowledge, expertise and work will enrich us all!@517
[1] https://icommoncause.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-supercoop.html
[2] https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/30/focus-on-agriculture-sector-covid-recovery.html?fbclid=lwAR2
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