For PH Youth To Find Happiness In Agriculture, ACPC, Please Fund A Knowledge Bank!

You are looking at Frank A Hilario's Personal Knowledge Bank built slowly since 2005 via WFH – nowadays, where I am most of the time. I think, I search, I write here. (And I sleep here; there’s a bed to the left before all that, not shown).

To my left and up above: Books & manuscripts edited, including books I published. Right in front of me is my Lenovo ThinkPadsetup with an HP printer and 2 monitors: Lenovo14-inch and ViewSonic 20-inch – subscribed to a PLDT Home Fibrtoday running at Mbps 109 Download & 111 Upload – Speed of Delight!

For young boys & girls 18-30 years of age targeted by the Department of Agriculture (DA) for mentoring or training in agribiz, can the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) look for funds to provide each youth not only a laptop with a printer plus an Internet connection, but more so a Youth Knowledge Bank (YouKnow Bank) to guide them before, during & after field training?

Except me, no one is mentioning a knowledge bank to serve the information, science & technology needs of the youth. I am past 80 now, and I know much of the science of Agriculture, but I cannot be independent of the wide world of knowledge & experience that keeps widening.

The YouKnow Bank should be constructed now! It should be where anyone can find answers, or guides, to questions on Philippine farming and fisheries – the who’s, what’s, where’s, when’s, how’s & why’s.

The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) both have knowledge banks, but as they are, they are both limited!

The PhilRice and IRRI knowledge banks do notoffer packages of technologies comparable and contrasting. And they do not present options for decision. And: Both PhilRice and IRRI prescribe mainly rice when they know man cannot live by rice alone!

Digital Agriculture should enable the farmer to choose all the time.
Examples:
Seeds to plant: Not just 1 crop
Cropping pattern(s): Region(s) for best results
Cultivation method(s): Effects of different types
Fertilizer(s): Which organic? How to produce?
Irrigation: How?
Pest “management” – Versus pest “control”!

With explanation(s). That is an incomplete list, but it indicates what a YouKnow Bank should contain for intelligent, climate-smart agriculture.

Today, neither PhilRice’s nor IRRI’s knowledge bank presents-explains enough of non-chemical choices for agriculture as well as cost-effective mixes of methods and materials. Why not? Because nobody is minding digital agriculture; those 2 institutions are only minding their own business.

Let’s look up again at Frank A Hilario’s Personal Knowledge Bank – if I did not have this one, how the hell do you think I could have written an essay every single day during the last 16 months as my WFH output? The unseen component has been most helpful: The Digital Connection. So much delight!

If we build that YouKnow Bank to entice, entertain and educate our youth, I am certain Agriculture would be Heaven on Earth for them! And us!@517