Championing Carabao’s Milk For Cagayan Children & Communities

I love carabao’s milk, cold & pasteurized. We have bottled milk available in my hometown Asingan in Eastern Pangasinan, produced by the farmers’ cooperative nurtured by Senator Leticia Ramos Shahani (God bless her soul). I don’t know about milk processing, but they probably have the same or similar equipment as shown above.

In a Facebook sharing by Noime Liangco I saw today, Saturday, 08 May 2021, Joel Cabading writes that “Cagayan Is Prepped To Become ‘Valley’ Of Milk In The North” (northern Philippines). Mr Cabading says, “Team KISAVIQ… successfully installed and operationalized the first-ever retort facility for the sterilization of carabao's milk in Cagayan Valley.” KISAVIQ is Kalinga, Isabela, Aurora, Vizcaya, Ifugao and Quirino provinces, designated by the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) as a dairy zone.

The PCC has provided the milk processing facility. Mr Cabading says:

(Such) facility is seen to boost milk production and marketing in the region while fulfilling its commitment (to) the School-Based Feeding Program (SBPF) of the Department of Education (DepEd) under…RA 11037 or the "Masustansyang Pagkain para sa Batang Pilipino Act." (“Nutritious Food for Filipino Children Act” – my translation).

Team KISAVIQ is headed by Noime C Liangco, owner of the Amancio Nicolas Tourist Farm & Hotel as well as Agri-Tourism Academy in Cordon, Isabela. My wife Ampy, daughter Gracielaand I visited the farm & hotel compliments of Miss Noime in mid-2018, and we saw how customer-minded she was. (You can read my latest essay on her, “Organic Foods & Forest To Grow For Amancio Tourist Farm In Cordon, Isabela[1],” dated 04 May 2021, in this same blog.)

Mr Cabading tells us the retort facility was delivered last April and installation completed 15 April, the trial run carried out soon after. It is estimated that the facility can produce at least 12,000 packs of sterilized milk given 2 shifts a day.

The PCC-assisted dairy cooperatives in KISAVIQ “pledged to consolidate their… milk production with the aim of contributing to the sustainability and realization of the goals and objectives of the dairy zone.”

Team KISAVIQ conducted its first meeting and strategic planning on 11 December 2020 at the Amancio Nicolas Farm Hotel in Cordon, Isabela through the initiative of the PCC at Cagayan State University headed by Rovina Piñera and Caro B Salces.

Mr Cabading says:

The strategic planning (was) a move to set a direction on how dairy development will prosper in the (zone). With the ongoing intervention, PCC is certain that carabao’s milk (will) reach far, benefitting more undernourished children.

Some 4 months before, on 07 August 2020, Revin Mikhael D Ochave reported: “PCC, DepEd Team Up For Nationwide School-Based Milk Feeding Program” (BusinessWorld). PCC and DepEd had signed a Memorandum of Agreement to implement the national milk feeding program of DepEd; that is to say, the KISAVIQ dairy zone is only a part.

Is carabao’s milk a good choice for children? Jansen Ramos quotes nutritionist-dietitian Malou Caudal as saying, “Carabao's milk contains protein, fat, lactose, vitamins, minerals, and water, making it the most complete food" (GMANetwork.com). I say, “Unbeatable!:@517

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[1]https://towardscoopagriculture.blogspot.com/2021/05/organic-foods-forest-to-grow-for.html

“Happy Mother’s Day!” To Amparo “Ampy” Medina Reynoso-Hilario

 

My wife looks like that most of the time, a caring woman, if strict, passionate. I took that photograph with my Eastman Kodak handy camera, point & shoot, 17 years ago, on Sunday, 13 June 2004. Always a simple lady, born 30 October 1945, she was 59 years old; I was 64. I loved her the first time I saw her!

Got married in Bay, Laguna 18 March 1967, birthday of her father, Gabriel Reynosofrom Tayabas, Quezon; she did nottell me – did not tell her father either, and he was mad! (When you are in love, you do foolish things.) Tagalog, Ilocano – extrovert, introvert. 

Our children:

Cristina Marie (Tina)
Jose Mario (Jomar)
Maria Lorena (Dida)
Paul Benjamin (Jay)
Teresa Leonor (Techie)
Cynthia Mae (Cynthia)
Julio Salvador (Dinggoy)
Jennifer Claire (Jenny)
Ernest Charles (+) (Ernie)
Daphne Cassandra (Daphne)
Neenah Bonafe (Neenah)
Edwin Dante (Edwin)
Graciela Antonia (Ela).

No, I cannot remember the dates of birth. Too many! I have to ask Ela, #13.

Ela was barely 7 months old when Amparo Medina Reynoso and Frank Agapito Hilario joined the New Year’s Day 1991 Marriage Encounter (ME) Seminar sponsored by the Bukás Loób sa Díyos (BLD) Community, now the BLD San Pablo District. I readily joined because I knew I had been not as much a loving husband as I should, and Ampy wasn’t perfect either! (I learned much later she had doubted that I would say “Yes” to the ME invitation – we never talked church or religion! It’s a long story but at that time I was already an agnostic.)

As ME prerequisite, we had to get married in church; we chose the San Antonio Parish Church and got a church wedding 29 December 1990. Note the name “Graciela Antonia” – Ela was born on the feast day of San Antonio De Padua.

The church wedding and ME brought us closer, much closer – I am not a very demonstrative person, unlike my wife. Look at the above photograph again: She is all smiles as she offers the whole bunch of luscious-looking rambutan. (As luscious as those lips!)

Many years ago, I asked her why she chose me among her several suitors, including a Professor of UP Los Baños, and I was only an Instructor. She said it was because I was the only one who made her laugh! Ha, ha. I don’t remember any of the jokes, but they must have come from the pages of the Reader's Digest, my favorite reading matter when I was in high school in Asingan, Pangasinan. And how could I have afforded to buy that magazine when the Dionisio Hilarios were not well-to-do? The library of our school, Rizal Junior College (HS Dept) was well-stocked with reading matter: books of classic English literature, American magazines like Life, Newsweek, and Time. I was a lucky voracious reader.

Differently, Ampy took up Stenography and, as she was good at it, she passed the government exam. She chose Los Baños as first priority of assignment. And that’s how we met. And the rest is our story.@517

Mestizo Rice – Where International Support Has Failed And PhilRice Is Succeeding!

Facebook surprises me with this link: “M20 Hybrid: Buenavista Farmers’ Best Choice[1]” written by Lemuel Villo (30 April 2021,  PhilRice.gov.ph). M20 is “Mestizo 20,” a hybrid rice. Alvin Ray U Rivera, Vice Mayor of Buenavista, Quezon, says Buenavista farmers are now harvesting as high as 8.3t/ha, more than 3 times as much as before!

In Buenavista. PhilRice first set up a trial planting in the dry season of 2018 in the town’s 25-ha demo farm. Nobody had any idea, but that year in the dry season, the dreaded El Niño came to town. Mr Villo says:

(Mr Rivera) recalled that with the shoe-sized cracks on their farms, the farmers expected no harvests at all. However, Buenavista farmers were amazed as the rice variety stood tall and produced many tillers and grains amidst drought.

The way I see it as a wide-reading agriculturist, Mestizo showed, when it mattered most, that it could withstand the lack of irrigation water in the field as well as the soil dry on top – because its roots could harvest capillary water rising up from the underground water table.

The Buenavista farmers were so happy the town increased the area of the demo farm from 25 ha in 2018 to 50 ha in 2019 – and to 100 ha in 2020. They refer to the area commonly planted as the “demo farm,” that which I see in 2 ways. One, it is a techno demo area for Mestizo 20; it is at the same time a group demo farm for growing rice. Winning ways.

(What else can they do? There is a “Buenavista Farmers” group on Facebook, but the entries do not mention that they are a cooperative – I suggest they form a multipurpose cooperative so that they can enjoy economies of scale. They can also have the young ones, out-of-school boys and girls 18-30 years of age, to work as farmhands and pay them handsomely! They are after all family.)

Now, I have a question to ask PhilRice: “Why has PhilRice not been campaigning vigorously for the planting of Mestizo 20?!”

My Google search yields this: Mestizo 20 was developed by IRRI and released in 1997 (Junelyn De La Rosa, 2003, “High Hopes On Mestizo Rice[2],” BAR.gov.ph). That was 23 years ago! It was the Hybrid Commercialization Rice Program (HCRP) that supported the development of Mestizo Rice, which is “aromatic and has better eating qualities than the popular IR64.”

Some 18 years ago, Luis P Lorenzo Jr, Adviser to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo predicted: “Mestizo Rice To Make RP Self Sufficient By 2004 – Lorenzo[3]” (Rose De La Cruz, 11 May 2002, PhilStar.com). Unfortunately, to this day PH is a rice-importing country.  I don’t know what happened, but the international group supporting Mestizo Rice has failed!

The lower image above shows Secretary of Agriculture William Dar virtually conferring with IRRI officials for some collaborative projects. I am sure Mestizo Rice will come up – and this time, those rice plants will rise to the challenge of a rice-self-sufficient Philippines!@517

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[1]https://www.philrice.gov.ph/m20-hybrid-buenavista-farmers-best-choice/?fbclid=IwAR3iefH-o2z3jC15bhA3oh_yJYKyYuC9R5vccSaZq0gWw6DrRyUa2v0hgW4

[2]https://www.bar.gov.ph/index.php/digest-home/digest-archives/89-2003-1st-quarter/3235-jan-mar03-high-hopes-on-mestizo-rice

[3]https://www.philstar.com/business/2002/05/11/160428/mestizo-rice-make-rp-self-sufficient-2004-151-lorenzo

Marshall McLuhan Revised: “The Message Is The Message”

My title: That’s what I’m saying as a teacher (University of the Philippines '65, PH Civil Service, Professional Level, year beforegraduation), and as a self-taught digital person: Author’s Editor, Blogger, Digital Publisher, and Technical Editor in Agriculture and Forestry publications & books, plural.

Main image: One of my early-morning photographs of ricefields in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, taken early morning during the opening day of the 8^th National Rice Forum held 30 March 2019 and sponsored by the Department of Agriculture (DA): Senior DA Technical Adviser SRO had told me about it. The message of the composite image: “The shadows undermine our geniuses as we are overjoyed by our conduct of webinars” (inset image of a webinar[1] from Better Meetings). As of today, our webinars are in fact worse than our seminars because they overwhelm everyone!

Compared to 2019, if you browse Facebooktoday, you will not miss webinars, or seminars either having been, being, or to be conducted over the Web (Internet). Now, what I can say is that whether in my country the Philippines, or in India or the United States:

All those webinars are not maximizing the powers (plural) of the Internet: aural and textual and visual and mixed – and are ignoring the virtual (pun intended) ease of drama.Not to mention repetition.

I go back to Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan and what he minded in 1964 (in his book Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man) – “The medium is the message.” If I understand him right, he meant you must use the medium, in its most attractive form, to convey your message.

And what are the presentors in today’s webinars doing with their medium, messages and materials?

If the medium is the message, then a webinar presentation is more than a paper with very readable texts, plenty of data-filled tables, and very pleasing images – it is a single idea that plays on the mind over and over again. Even after the webinar is over.

Ha, ha.

Having come out with that insight, I now revise McLuhan: “The Message is The Message.” Forget the medium! I mean, beginning with a Main Message, the webinar speaker should build up the presentation to expound on that main message – repeating without repeating – the same message but varying in shape, size and signs! The mixed powers of the Internet.

What is happening in webinars today is what has been happening in seminars – the papers presented are manuscripts designed to be published in journals, not to be presented as memorable visual cum textual contents.

We have forgotten that a presentation must be memorable; otherwise, it is forgettable, even if astounding in impact and details – it’s the Message, not the Medium!

So, I am revising Marshall McLuhan: “The message is the message.” If you don’t have a clear, coherent, concrete & concise message, you are wasting everyone’s time.

Whether you have only 5 minutes or 50 minutes for your presentation, your audience will forget your mix of text, audio & video – but not your message: If you got it right!@517

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[1]https://bettermeetings.expert/blog/webinar-best-practices-formats-engaging-interactive-webinars/

I Love Pigs, I Love Pink – Not Nicanor Briones’ Half-Cooked Barbecue!

On Facebook, somebody asks something like, “If you had a choice, what would you like to eat all the time?” And my reply is, “Pork barbecue.”

When I was that high, my mother Baket Satur used to raise half-breed pigs, but she always sold them; she never raised one animal for a special occasion like a birthday. Not that we were poor, but you know us Ilocanos – we need the money, not the celebration!

After high school in Asingan, Pangasinan, I went to a “cheap” school, the UP College of Agriculture. During the 1^st Year, we also studied Animal Husbandry, but my major was Ag Education. Teacher. I was going to raise boys’ and girls’ hopes as they lived their lives, not raise pigs in a pen.

60 years later, today, Thursday, 06 May 2021, the swines haunt me!

I just read Dexter Tilo’s news report about swine raisers: “Crying Gov’t Neglect, Various Groups Threaten To Stage ‘Food Holiday’[1]” (05 May 2021, Inquirer.net) – and my pink reactions are in the carton images above[2] (thank you, BSGStudio):

Surprised. Sleepy. Curious. Dumbfounded. Knocked Out, Aware.

The very first sentence of Mr Tilo’s report is a warning: “Agriculture Secretary William Dar is in a bind because defiant farmers are threatening a food holiday.” My favorite American Heritage Dictionary says “in a bind” means “in a particularly difficult or awkward situation, especially one that is not easy to resolve or escape (from).” The threat of a “food holiday” actually comes from the Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines via its Chair Nicanor Briones. Mr Tilo says:

Nicanor Briones on Wednesday raged against the government, accusing it of neglecting the hog sector, even punishing it through imports, tariffs, and price caps despite the industry’s suffering from the African Swine Fever outbreak.

With him “raging” against those things, I know Mr Briones has not studied the matter very, very thoroughly and I simply imagine him turning pink in anger!

In truth, as I can see it from where I sit on my comfortable executive chair writing this essay on my external 20-inch wide-angle ViewSonic monitor attached to my Lenovo ThinkPad laptop and my intelligent A4Tech keyboard, Mr Briones does not believe in cooperative agriculture as I do, as Mr Dar does.

It looks to me like Mr Briones will cooperate with you if you cooperate with him first! Another way of putting that is this: “He offers half-cooked pork barbecue you must finish cooking!”

Mr Briones does not know, but Mr Dar is your man in a troubled hour.

Thus: When Mr Dar was Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), based in India, from 2000 to 2014, ICRISAT’s slogan was, “Science with a human face.” Everyone at that institute took it to heart, and so from kulelat (dead last), ICRISAT rose to #1 among 15 international agricultural research centers, which include(d) IRRI.

History is my witness, Mr Briones. Here’s to raising hopes in these islands – Here’s to “Agriculture with a Filipino face!”@517

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[1]https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1427652/crying-govt-neglect-various-groups-threaten-to-stage-food-holiday

[2]https://all-free-download.com/free-vector/download/pig-icons-cute-emotional-design-pink-decor_6837365.html

Reinventing A.G.R.I.C.U.L.T.U.R.E., Celebrating May As Farmers’ & Fishers’ Month

As a communicator for development (ComDev) in the broad science of Agriculture and related fields, differently I am celebrating May as The Month for Farmers & Fishers. As my photograph above indicates, we must collectively work towards farmers & fishers having happy children, not necessarily feeling rich but feeling happy!

I am celebrating by way of this acronym:

Appropriate ways & means.
Greens.
Research continuing.
Information from practices.
Cooperative.
Unselfish & unsung.
Learning for everyone.
Technical knowledge.
Understanding needs.
Relationships cultivated.
Ecology & economics.

A.G.R.I.C.U.L.T.U.R.E. – 11 letters taken not as separate parts but a whole-in-one, the components making a complete package.

Appropriate ways & means.
Methods or manners must be shown to be technologically feasible as well as economically viable as well as environmentally sound as well as socially acceptable. Climate-smart as well as client-smart. Organic farmingis one such complete package. Some tools and techniques fail to satisfy those 4 requirements that must always come together. There are many breakthroughs but only few great-throughs.

Greens.
Appropriate food crops for humans and animals. They must be grown in environment-friendly ways, not contributing to the pollution of bodies. Organic agriculture is black, but I see it as the one to grow the greens.

Research continuing.
For new or improved ways & means. But in the end, any of those new or improved ways or means must prove to be Appropriate (see above).

Information from practices. Feedback from the field is important, nay necessary.

Cooperative spirit. As we are witnessing today, cooperative agriculture is the Name of the Game where everyone wins! In a cooperative, you compete for people, not against.

Unselfish & unsung. No, the medium is not the message. Yes, the medium and message in one is what is important, not the messenger.

Learning for everyone. There is always room for improvement or advancement in whatever one is doing.

Technical knowledge. What research brings out is technical in language. So that a 3^rd year high schooler can understand and explain to the father farmer who happens to be illiterate, the need for science to be translated into popular language cannot be over-emphasized.

Understanding needs. Everyone concerned must be aware and take to heart Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.”

Relationships cultivated. Progress is best achieved when people and positions come together for one common goal. The title of my new blog tells us with whatand how to do – Towards Organic Cooperative Agriculture.

Economics: In the end, it must redound to the good of everyone in society. In agriculture, that especially concerns the poor farmers and fishers whom we must assist to rise from poverty and stay up there!

Yes, ComDev (communication for development) is my extension model, not DevCom (development communication). With acronym sharply contrasting, in 1980 I invented ComDev as a contradistinctive choice for encouraging people to adopt new or improved technologies or systems – while DevCom is content with one or two stories related, ComDev is a series of related stories cultivating belief and acceptance – such as via this blog.

Campaigning for A.G.R.I.C.U.L.T.U.R.E., give me ComDev anytime!@517

Organic Foods & Forest To Grow For Amancio Tourist Farm In Cordon, Isabela

Unsolicited Advice: If then, they can call it Amancio Nicolas’ Cordon Food Forest. “Cordon” for location – implying exclusivity, a tourist attraction. To attract mouths hungry for natural foods, and to attract minds hungry for enjoying the peace of Mother Nature on any of those hills turned green!

This morning, Tuesday, 04 May 2021, I saw Noime Liangco’s Facebook post dated 29 September 2020 – late but as good as yesterday. Her title intrigues me absolutely: “A Better Future Through Natural And Sustainable Agriculture” – all because I have been writing about sustainable agriculture as well as thinking about the Amancio farm & hotel in Cordon, Isabela. She says, “Amancio Nicolas Farm: A New Name, A New Hope.”

My wife Ampy, our youngest Graciela, and I as family guests visited the Amancio farm & hotel at near the boundary of Cordon, Isabela, on invitation of owner Miss Noime for 4 days in the 3^rdweek of June 2018, some 3 years ago. I wrote quite a few essays on the subject that same year right after the visit, the very first being “Noime's Place & The Rich Harvests From The Farm On The Hills[1]” (25 June 2018, A Magazine Called Love): would you believe 30-plus essays? (Will write about them later.)

The lower image above shows some Amancio hills, with the farm hotel in the distance. You can see trees, but too few to call the place “a forest.” Those bare hills are waiting for food plants and forest trees to make them green!

Fast as well as educational solution? First off, I’m thinking now of high school students of nearby Santiago City actually practicing organic gardening on those hills, and getting good grades along with good food – absolutely no chemicals used. The high schoolers will also be planting the trees that serve as nurse plants for their varied vegetables, and pretty soon you have a spread of food & forest there. Sustainable agroforestry, agribusiness-conscious youth.

Even Miss Noime can plant, say, cacao trees and dream of making tablea sold on a table made from wood from a tree in the Amancio forest. She could make history, and money attracting visitors far and wide, from these islands and from around the world.

Yes, there is food in the Amancio Farm, as Ampy and I saw by the side of the freshwater pond, that which Miss Noime stocked with fish, and even wild ampalaya growing elsewhere – but no vegetables growing under the trees or anywhere else. Those bald hills up there are waiting for food crops to grow to make them look greener and make a pilgrim feel healthier just by the sight of fruits up in the air or near the ground.

You earn while you learn. I’m thinking: Those small and big hills and valleys of the Amancio farm are a sight for high schoolers to visit and learn practical forestry and agriculture up there – and earn some honest money to make their thin pockets thicker. Sustainable Amancio Farm – and sustainable high school education!@517

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[1]https://amagazinecalledlove.blogspot.com/2018/06/noime-place-rich-harvests-from-farm-on.html