“A Smarter Way To Grow Rice” – World Bank. What About “A Smarter Way To Enrich Everyone Via Rice?” – Frank A Hilario

Here are 2 ladies with the World Bank: Juergen Voegelle & Yvonne Pinto who write 08 June 2025 about “A Smarter Way To Grow Rice” (World Bank Blogs, logs.worldbank.org):

“Smarter investments in rice could lift millions out of poverty and boost economic growth in producing countries – by raising farmer incomes, making food more affordable, and creating jobs across the value chain” (https://getwallpapers.com/image, image from the site).

Easier said than done!

As an agriculturist (UP Los Baños 1965 graduate) and afterwards turned creative journalist (self-taught, so far UPLB’s historical one-and-only “Outstanding Alumnus for Creative Writing”), today I look at the scene quite differently – only wholistic farming will deliver the goods and the good!

Breeding a different kind of rice is already too much science to me – when will we stop? Having been The Editor In Chief of so many agriculture-related publications in the Philippines – like (1) Canopy, a monthly on forestry published in semi-popular language; (2) Habitat, a forestry quarterly color magazine patterned after the American National Geographic – both Canopy and Habitat published by the Forest Research Institute (FORI, now ERDB), and (3) Philippine Journal of Crop Science 2001-2008 (published by the Federation of Crop Science Societies of the Philippines),  I look at the problem quite differently! We should instead:

(1)   Emphasize farmer’s income.

(2)   Emphasize consumer health starting with the grain’s healthiness itself.

And the only way to do that is to grow crops by junking chemical fertilizers and pesticides and growing them the natural ways!

Half of humanity eats rice. But behind the ubiquitous staple lies a mounting crisis. The World Bank authors say:

“The global rice industry is experiencing real turbulence. Yields are stagnating after decades of intensive farming that have drained water resources and exhausted the soil.”

That is, after decades of “chemical farming”!

“Many of the 140 million rice farmers in the world live in poverty – managing tiny plots, exposed to risks and with few opportunities to diversify.”

Tiny plots? It doesn’t matter if the harvests are big! That’s the problem – the yields are small compared to the costs.

With Chemical Agriculture (CA), farmers are cultivating against their own pockets and health!

To save their own skin (and ours as consumers), I see that farmers have to shift from CA to NA (Natural Agriculture). The costs of NA materials are negligible: seeds from naturally grown crops, no chemicals necessary!

Here is my list of NA methods:

(1) Cover Cropping,
(2) Crop Rotation,
(3) Farm Crops + Tree Crops (Agroforestry),
(4) Green Manuring,
(5) Intercropping,
(6) Multiple Cropping,
(7) No-Till Farming,
(8) Organic Fertilization,
(9) Ratooning,
(10) Rotational Grazing,
(11) “Three Sisters” Planting,
(12) Trap Cropping, and
(13) Trash Mulching.

Yes, the Lucky 13 is being taught in the #1 university of agriculture in the Philippines – UP Los Baños – but not seriously. As far as I know, none of the UPLB methods being seriously taught is farmer-friendly and community-friendly!

When will UPLB learn Natural Agriculture principles and teach those 13 methods, seriously, institutionally?@517