Written by Nathan P Felix 15 December 2020, the news is “SEARCA Signs MOU With Tarlac Agricultural University[1]”(Searca.org). The signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, was virtual between SEARCA Director Glenn B Gregorio and TAU President Max P Guillermo, as witnessed by Joselito G Florendo, SEARCA Deputy Director for Administration, and Christina N Ferrer, TAU External Linkages & International Affairs Director. Mr Felix says that in elaborating on the MOU between SEARCA and TAU:
Dr Gregorio emphasized the importance of collaboration and partnership to realize its mission to elevate the quality of life of agricultural families through sustainable livelihoods and access to modern networks and innovative markets in this time of pandemic.
SEARCA is the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture based in Los Baños, Laguna, and TAU is the Tarlac Agricultural University based in Camiling, Tarlac. So this MOU brings together Southeast Asian and Philippine perspectives.
SEARCA I know sponsors graduate studies and research in agriculture in Southeast Asia; TAU belongs to a list of PH state colleges & universities engaged in education and research in agriculture. As I understand it, in the long term, the collaboration & partnership aims to help improve the standards of living of farm families by 2 general ways: (1) help generate sustainable livelihoods, and (2) help access markets by innovating.
As early as 15 years ago, in 2005, the need for “sustainable livelihoods” of farmers was already being discussed among research, extension and field agencies of PH government, and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, with now-Secretary of Agriculture William Dar as Director General of ICRISAT, based in India. Ma Lizbeth J Baroña reported those in attendance included then-Secretary of Agriculture Domingo Panganiban, Mr Dar and Bureau of Soil & Water Management Director Roger Concepcion, Bureau of Agricultural Research Director Nicomedes Eleazar, and Federation of Free Farmers President Leonardo Montemayor attending the inauguration of the “Community-Based Watershed Management Approach In Improving Livelihood Opportunities Project” implemented in barangay Sapang Bulak, Doña Remedios Trinidad, Bulacan (20 July 2005, “Collaborative Watershed Management Project Inaugurated[2],” BAR.gov.ph).
If you ask me, who am an old agriculturist already teaching trash farming at Xavier University College of Agriculture in Cagayan De Oro in 1968, the realization of any “sustainable livelihood” is not easy, so I must congratulate SEARCA and TAU for going after this ideal for the sake of our farming families.
(“Sustainable people” image[3] from Change.org)
Indeed, “sustainable livelihood” must possess the following attributes: (1) technically feasible, (2) economically viable, (3) environmentally sound, and (4) socially acceptable. Technology should not be a problem. Innovative marketing would generate sustainable incomes (“economically viable”), I don’t know about “environmentally sound” agriculture. I have my own ideas.
So, I am volunteering my idea of trash farming, which is working with the natural resources in the field to enrich it – among other things, you save BIG on fertilizer, weedicide & pesticide.@517
[1]https://www.searca.org/news/searca-signs-mou-tarlac-agricultural-university?fbclid=IwAR11CBWdwI6MZ0Cqt7H_EiVQacE2q4U4frHmxjtwJVhrLDwO34s9xfPF18Q
[2]https://bar.gov.ph/index.php/test-archive/379-july-2005-issue/2707-collaborative-watershed-management-project-inaugurated
[3]https://www.change.org/p/central-government-help-people-find-sustainable-livelihood-for-their-dignity-security-right-for-livelihood
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