Reboot Part-Time Secretary Of Agriculture With A Full-Time Secretary From A Poor Family In Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, With An Unmatched International Leadership Record!

No Sir, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, as currently Interim Secretary of Agriculture – you cannot have your cake and eat it too! Today, Wednesday, 10 April 2023, I am reading with interest a 2-mo-old+ Inquirer column by Meliton B Juanico, “What Now, Department Of Agriculture?” (06 Feb 2023, Inquirer, opinion.inquirer.net) that is extremely relevant and says immediately and pointedly:

One of the country’s most pressing needs now is the appointment of a full-time [Secretary [of Agriculture,] [with President Marcos Jr still] the head [of the Department of Agriculture] but does not initiate crucial solutions to our woefully dysfunctional agricultural economic system.
(“Vacant seat” from aamc.org)

The President cannot take his own sweet time in mulling over who to appoint as agriculture secretary, while [for instance] onion farmers are killing themselves due to government apathy and the poor suffer from hunger amid abnormally high food prices. The neoclassical economists of his administration are singing praises over the country’s high GDP growth rate of 7.6 percent and its consequent PhP22.02-trillion worth of the economy; however, they should ask themselves if this growth rate has tangibly trickled down to the masses and solved the country’s age-old problems of poverty, inequality, and unemployment.

I echo Mr Juanico:

(1)          “The most pressing [need] now is the appointment of a full-time Secretary of Agriculture.

(2)          The Interim Secretary of Agriculture “does not initiate crucial solutions to our woefully dysfunctional agricultural economic system.”

(3)          “The country’s high GDP growth rate… has [not] trickled down to the masses and solved the country’s age-old problems of poverty, inequality, and unemployment.”

I look at Farmer Poverty and Climate Change as 2 of the most pressing problems of the Filipinos. Chemical Agriculture (CA), the practice of Filipino farmers today, is the unacknowledged generator of agricultural misery, along with Climate Change! CA is expensive, which keeps our farmers poor – high costs, low returns. Simultaneously, chemical fertilizers generate greenhouse gases (GHGs); the GHGs in turn generate Climate Change. Unknowingly, following William Shakespeare, this is true for our farmers:

“The evils that men do live after them;
The good are oft interred with their bones.”

And I look at Regenerative Agriculture (RA) as the common solution to these twin problems. A major practice of RA is organic agriculture (OA). Let us now take the case of the use of organic fertilizers in lieu of inorganic or chemical fertilizers. OA will reduce by leaps and bounds the cost of fertilizers and pesticides, and generate extraordinary incomes for farmers: low costs result in high returns. If you look at Laguna Province, you will note at least 3 organic farms: Laguna Organic, Herbana Farms, and Costales Nature Farm. Meanwhile, in unhappy contrast, UP Los Baños, which is nearby, is espousing unknowingly the cause of Farmer Poverty along with Climate Change: Chemical Agriculture!

And I know only one Secretary of Agriculture who believes in Regenerative Agriculture – William Dar. And he has private-sector support, AgriNegosyo. Let us regenerate PH Agriculture!@517  
(“AgriNegosyo” from facebook.com)