Coco Hubs

Coco Hubs is the “nickname” for Integrated Coconut Agro-Industrial Hubs.

It is a program of government that seeks to address the problem of small coconut farmers whose only income from coconuts are from their sale of copra or nuts to traders who aggregate them and in turn sell them to large mills that are far from the farms.

By supporting the setting up of small and medium size processing plants, the Coco Hubs program seeks to make the small coconut farmers go beyond being raw material producers to being participants in the higher value-adding part of the coconut value chain.

Last Friday, I was asked to speak on the Coco Hubs at a forum sponsored by SOAP, the group whose mission is to Spread Organic Agriculture in the Philippines.

Am posting the slides I prepared.

From Mount Pinatubo to Typhoon Yolanda

 

There is a 20-year story behind this picture.

On April 28, at Barangay Iba in Basey, Samar, two Aeta leaders from Zambales turned over to their host community an organic demo farm and seed bank that they helped set up in one week.

How did two Aetas, Carling and Tubag, end up in Samar? It’s an interesting story.

Sometime in December 2013, a month after Typhoon Yolanda devastated communities in Samar and Leyte, Carling relayed to us a request from the Aeta elders in their hometown of Botolan Zambales. Could ELF help two of them travel to Samar and stay there for 2 weeks?

The elders had decided to offer whatever help they could – some rice from their harvest, root crops, seeds for planting. But especially, they wanted to share lessons from their experience when they were displaced from their mountain communities by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

Lessons from Mount Pinatubo

“We want to help them prepare for the time when the aid agencies have gone away,” Carling added.

His words reminded me of our first conversations 20 years ago. When ELF invited them to our grassroots leadership formation course, they told us this story. After the eruption, many agencies and much aid poured into their areas. But by the time we met, almost all had gone away. “The agencies have gone on to another disaster area,” they said.

Still, they remained grateful for the aid they had received at their time of need. Hence their decision to offer whatever they can to the communities affected by Yolanda.

Giriie and I were inspired by their spirit of solidarity, and promised to look for funds to support their travel. But we also suggested that we ask our friends and contacts to identify the specific community (barangay) that would host the Aetas. That way, they can focus their assistance, and have a community that they could help long-term and not just through one visit.

Global-local connections

Cha Cala and Chuchi Antonio live and work in Calgary, Canada. Before they migrated there, we worked together in ELF, and they know Carling and our Aeta partners.

They posted news about a fund-raising effort by the Filipino community in Canada together with former Vietnamese refugees who wanted to reciprocate the assistance they got during their transit in the Philippines.

Girlie and I wrote them about the Aetas’ plans, and asked if they could support it. They got back quickly and asked us to send a brief project write up. Happily, the fund-raising committee agreed to help. Thank you, Philippine Emergency Response TaskForce (PERT)!

Boi Nicolasora is from Samar and also worked with us in ELF. We asked him to help identify an affected community that would welcome the Aetas’ offer.

He asked the help of Fr. Cesar, the social action director of Samar. They decided on Barangay Iba in Basey.

The first time I heard the name of Barangay Iba, I had to ask if it is really in Samar. Iba happens to be also the name of the capital town of Zambales.

I wonder what new episodes will be added to this 20-year story. Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

 

 

 

Sex and Death among Rats and Snails

Yesterday after returning home from Philrice, I couldn’t wait to tell Girlie the two things I learned about the sex life of rats and snails.

Do you know how long it takes for a rat to have sex?

Sirit? Five seconds!

Do you know how long it takes for snails to have sex?

Sirit again? Four hours!

The second item made us recall a line of poetry she once quoted in a letter she wrote to me as a prisoner – “the slow furious passion of a snail.”

She thought she got it from e.e.cummings. We both Googled and found out that the idea, if not the precise language, came from Thom Gunn’s Considering a Snail.

I thought the trivia about fast and furious sex of rats and the slow fury of snails were good for some laughs. And that’s that.

But today, unexpectedly, rats and snails again filled my long day’s journey in Panay island.

I was with the Department of Agriculture group that accompanied three Cuban experts in biotechnology for an initial appraisal of rat infestation in Western Visayas. They briefed LGUs, technicians, barangay officials and farmers about Biorat, a biotech product that effectively reduces rat infestation by 80 per cent, and is harmless to all other animals and human beings. It has been tested successfully for 25 years in various countries. The DA is thinking of using Biorat in a pilot program of biological rat control in Panay and Negros islands.

The Cuban experts had interesting insights about rats. When rats ingest the usual varieties of rat poison, they consume less than 40 per cent before they stop eating because they realize that it is toxic. And those that do not die instantaneously, manage to transmit information to other rats that make them shy away from the same poison.

Biorat is not only biological. It is designed to attract the rats by its smell. And when rats eat it, they eat as much as 80 per cent before they stop. It takes another day before the Biorat takes effect, and another day before the rat dies. In the meantime, they infect their fellow rats without warning them about it. The original infection caused by Biorat can be passed on up to a third set of rats.

In the barangay meeting we had at Santa Barbara in Iloilo, the Cuban expert ate some Biorat to emphasize that it is safe for humans. He then challenged any one to volunteer to eat some. To my suprise, three of them did. The other two Cubans challenged me to do the same. “Don’t you believe?” They teased me. I said “I believe, but right now I don’t want to test my belief!”

While we were having fun about rats and Biorat,  Asec Dante Delima called the attention of the Cubans to the clumps of snail’s eggs on the stalks of some plants. He gave a short history of how the golden apple snail was introduced by previous administrations to provide protein to farmers, but eventually became pests that destroy as much as 15 to 20 per cent of the crops.

“Do you have any biopesticide against snails?” He asked. The Cubans did not have anything in their stock of products. They asked Dante to give them more information about the species and promised to look into it.

Developing a biopesticide against snails could take the Cubans as long as it took to develop Biorat. If so, the golden kuhol can look forward to a lot of time for their slow-motion sex.

Life, Death, and Remembrance

The first days of November are a time of ritual remembrance.

Upon waking up, my first prayers were for two mothers in my life – my own Inay who died in February 2009, and our Nanay Flotie ( Girlie’s mother ) who died in March this year.

From them, my mind and heart leaped over departed relatives and friends, to remember martyrs and heroes, including those at Bantayog ng mga Bayani. I thought about Oca Francisco whom we will install on the Wall of Remembrance come November 30, and Boy Morales who I hope will eventually be honored there.

As I reflected about their life and death, I thought of an interesting lesson I learned about life and death – in agriculture.

Toward the end of 2010, I had been asked to serve as consultant to the new Secretary of Agriculture. I didn’t really know Procy Alcala that well, but some activists in his inner circle thought I could help in communicating his vision of Agri-Pinoy.

I said that compared to agrarian reform, I knew much less about agriculture, including organic agriculture whose law he authored. But I was willing to help and willing to learn.

During one conversation I was told, “If farmers stop burning rice straw, that would contribute a lot to sustainable agriculture.”

Naively, I asked: “Why? Isn’t burning the straw after harvest the faster way to bring nutrients back to the soil?”

That led to a quick tutorial from Tere Saniano and Dante Delima, who worked closely with Procy Alcala when he was still in Congress. They patiently explained that if rice straw is decomposed rather than burned, it adds organic matter to the soil. In fact, according to Philrice, one hectare of ricefield can give 5 tons of straw that is equivalent to two sacks of urea.

But it’s not even the nutrient equivalent that is most important.

Take the hundreds of sacks of chicken dung that farmers in Benguet buy from Batangas for their vegetable fields: “These are not used as fertilizer, since they use chemical fertilizers. They need the dung to restore organic matter in the soil. Without organic matter, the plants cannot make use of the nutrients from fertilizers, whether chemical or organic.”

Because of that tutorial, I started reading up on organic matter in the soil, and now realize its essential role for the growth of plants. In its stable form of humus, it is a reservoir of nutrients. It also retains water  like a sponge, and prevents the soil from compacting. But above all, organic matter hosts a multitude of microorganisms that make nutrients accessible to plants.

Organic matter in the soil is complex and cannot be synthesized. It can only come from formerly living things like plants and animals, which decompose, through the action of microorganizims and air,  heat and water.

In Likasaka, the manual on natural farming that Tere and Dante wrote, there is a section that reads like a philosophy about the cycle of life and death.

Living plants can’t grow without nutrients, which cannot be used unless there is organic matter in the soil. And organic matter in the soil can come only from living things that die and decompose.

Watermelons in Dumingag

This weekend of June 30 and July 1, Girlie and I visited Dumingag in Zamboanga del Sur. It was my fourth visit to Dumingag, but Girlie’s first time.

I invited her to help me interview Mayor Jun Pacalioga, his wife Gerlyn, and members of his “core group” for a book I proposed to write together with them. The LGU of Dumingag and Mayor Jun are among the five finalists in a 2012 global award for organic agriculture. It is a timely opportunity to write their story which I have been wanting to tell a broader audience.

IFOAM, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements is the most established global network of organic agriculture practicioners and advocates, all of them NGOs and people’s organizations. The LGU of Dumingag has the distinction of being the first ever government member accepted into IFOAM.

Our weekend visit was filled with conversations, which continued into our early Monday morning trip with Mayor Jun driving us back to Pagadian airport.

The story of how Mayor Jun led the successful promotion of sustainable organic agriculture is instructive and inspiring. But this story is inextricably linked to another equally challenging story – of participatory local governance toward social justice and social transformation.

During our first 6-hour session with his core group, we discussed the interplay between these two stories.

Mayor Jun and his wife Gerlyn were part of the revolutionary movement in Zamboanga Peninsula until the early 90s. When he ran for mayor in 2007, he based his campaign on an 8-point  platform of government which he called “Genuine People’s Agenda” or GPA.

From my first visit to this last visit, I couldn’t help but tease Mayor Jun and his group about his favorite adjective “genuine,” I told them about Ka Pepe Diokno’s quip: “No matter how clever the united front cadres you send, I figure them out within a few minutes. How? Their favorite adjective is ‘genuine’ – genuine freedom, genuine agrarian reform, genuine democracy!”

Two years ago, Dumingag won the Galing Pook award for this Genuine People’s Agenda.

In September, Dumingag has a good chance of winning the global award, for its promotion of sustainable organic agriculture.

The color of the struggle for social justice is red. The color of sustainable organic agriculture is green. We had fun thinking of ways to describe the two stories coming together in Dumingag.

We settled for the image of a watermelon, green on the outside, red on the inside. Someone added:”Don’t forget the seeds inside.”

Gramsci in Dumingag

Dumingag is a second-class town in Zamboanga del Sur, with 44 barangays, 33 of them upland and inhabited mainly by indigenous Subanen. It was chosen to host the first MIndanao Sustainable Organic Agriculture Congress. During a brief conversation, Mayor Jun Pacalioga requested me to do a one page write up about his work in Dumingag, in support of his nomination for an international award.

Here is my brief submission, adapting some concepts from Gramsci:

Learning from Dumingag, Zambpanga del Sur

Two years ago, I asked officials of the Department of Agriculture if  there is any LGU that has provided agricultural extension workers in every barangay. “The mayor of Dumingag has done it,” they told me.

Mayor Jun Pacalioga has done this, and more. In everyone of the 44 barangays, most of them upland, there is an extension worker paid from LGU funds. And there is a second extension worker, paid from barangay funds.

What caught my interest is the two-week training these extension workers underwent – on community organizing, integrative health, and sustainable organic agriculture.  Also, that the promotion of sustainable organic agriculture is embedded in an over-all program of participatory local governance and people empowerment.

The impact of Mayor Jun’s leadership is symbolized by the decision to hold the first Mindanao-wide conference on sustainable organic agriculture in Dumingag.

There may be better practitioners and promoters of organic agriculture who have lessons to share. But I think that Dumingag and Mayor Jun are contributing unique lessons, demonstrated in practice, to those like myself who not only advocate sustainable agriculture, but want to link it to the struggle for social justice and social transformation.

The leadership and strategies of Mayor Jun remind me of Antonio Gramsci’s observation that “hegemony” (of the dominant elite) is maintained through a combination of “coercion and consent.” Why have changes for the better happened in Dumingag within a relatively short time and with limited local resources? I think a key reason is the judicious use by Mayor Jun of this Gramscian combination.

There is a significantly broad base within Dumingag for sustainable organic agriculture. This is the result of persistent education and social mobilization work not only by the barangay-based extension workers, but by the LGU itself, personally led by Mayor Jun who practices what he preaches. But this “consent” has also been reinforced by various local ordinances that are strictly enforced, including the banning of chemical inputs. It is further reinforced by the LGU’s initiative to link the small producers to markets.

Another insight of Gramsci on “good sense” and “common sense” can be applied to Dumingag. I told Mayor Jun that one indicator of success is when the “good sense” had become “common sense.” Hence his efforts to integrate the practices and principles of sustainable organic agrlculture in the culture of Dumingag.

And there are early signs of this. When he started, people said “Why is the Mayor promoting organic agriculture? Is he crazy?”

Now, they say, “Those who do not practice organic agriculture must be crazy.”

GOMBURZA and Watermelons

Yesterday, February 17, was GOMBURZA day, in honor of the three priests who were accused of supporting the Filipinos’ struggle for national independence, and were garroted by the Spanish colonial government.

Jose Rizal has been quoted as saying that “Were it not for Gomburza, I would have probably been a Jesuit.”

Remembering this yesterday, the ICM nuns at St. Theresa (mostly senior citizens like me) shared a mischievous chuckle. Should we be thankful that Rizal did not become a Jesuit, or should we regret it?

I was invited to St. Theresa to give an orientation on urban agriculture, not the usual topic for me or for them.

Many of the ICM nuns were familiar faces, proudly acknowledging their history of social activism. We had no time to check, but most of them were probably part of the Christians for National Liberation, which our generation of Christian activists launched with a march-procession to the Gomburza monument on February 17, 1972.

That’s 40 years ago.

A short pause to give thanks, that we are still alive. and not just biologically.

I recall reading that all human beings, without exception, share two common desires: To live long. And to live well.

I used a Filipino version of this for Inay who died three years ago at age 89. Maraming salamat para sa isang mahaba at makabuluhang buhay.

For most of us in the lecture hall yesterday, living well and meaningfully had been associated with our commitment to social justice and taking sides with the struggles of the poor and oppressed. I referred to that at the start of my talk, adding that the symbolic color of our cause is red. During the martial law years of repression, the color red represented not just resistance but revolution.

But we were meeting to initiate a new conversation about urban agriculture, and the broader cause of sustainable development.

Another cause, another color – green. No, not as in the 1960s “green revolution,” but green nonetheless. Closer to organic agriculture but not exclusively so.

I chose to tell them about urban agriculture by tracing my own learning process. Like them, my involvement in agriculture was indirect, focused on social justice issues rather than productivity, agrarian reform rather than crops, credit and markets. Not even organic agriculture.

So, were we about to switch colors from red to green?

Not quite. Our commitment to social justice remains. So with our “preferential option for the poor.” But it is now linked to and enveloped by our commitment to sustainable development, not just in the distant future, but now.

“Let’s think of ourselves as watermelons,” I said. “Green on the outside, but still red inside.”

My presentation on urban agriculture was not about the technical aspects of production. It was an initial orientation about its principles, followed by a scan of possibilities for a large urban compound like the St. Theresa campus and the ICM residences. I ended with a challenge to them to discuss and decide on their priorities among the many possibilities.

So, other than the date, is there any connection at all to Gomburza and CNL and our cause of national liberation?

I think there is, but that is for another blog.

Auke Idzenga and Ram Pumps

The only Ramon Magsaysay awardee from the Philippines for 2011 is the Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation Inc. (AIDFI), founded and headed by Auke Idzenga.

In Facebook exchanges, one of Auke’s friends joked that “AI” in AIDFI may mean Auke Idzenga. I would add one more letter so that “AID” means Auke Ilonggo-Dutch. His commitment to the Philippines, particularly to Negros is very personal: He has married an Ilongga and is currently engaged, even embroiled, in helping his father in law defend his rights to the land he has acquired through agrarian reform.

I will write the story of that struggle in my next blog post.

But for now, I want to copy and post the citation of the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation. I hope that the award gives Auke some protection against the death threats from vested interests with the “wang-wang” mentality denounced by PNoy in his 2011 SONA.

CITATION for Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI)
Ramon Magsaysay Award Presentation Ceremonies
31 August 2011, Manila, Philippines

Building technology to serve the poor is a major challenge in the world today. Technology’s benefits must be brought to people, whatever their status, wherever they are, and in ways they can own and sustain. This is essential to promoting development, addressing poverty, and empowering communities.

For the past fifteen years, a small non-profit organization in the province of Negros Occidental, the Philippines has been addressing precisely this challenge. The Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI) is a social enterprise that tackles the problem of rural poverty by designing, fabricating, and promoting environment-friendly technology which is accessible and income-augmenting, for the poor.

AIDFI was initially born out of the social turmoil that accompanied the collapse of the sugar industry in Negros during the 1980s. Hundreds of workers and farmers were displaced and the survival of peasant families was severely threatened. In the wake of this crisis, a small group of social activists which included Auke Idzenga, a Dutch marine engineer, decided to form AIDFI to address the basic needs of the affected farmers. Agricultural production and technology development were their initial strategies, but meager funds and the loss of key members forced the organization to close down. When Idzenga returned to Negros in 1997, however, AIDFI was revived, this time with a clearer focus on innovating technology to help poor, rural families.

AIDFI’s first success came when it redesigned an ancient and largely abandoned technology called the ram pump. The ram pump uses the natural kinetic energy of flowing water from rivers or springs, to push water uphill without the use of gas or electricity. As reinvented by AIDFI, the ram pump can lift water to an upland reservoir, with a volume of 1,500 to 72,000 liters of water per day. Partnering with organizations and local governments, AIDFI does not only introduce machinery, but a whole “social package” which includes community consultation, training of village technicians, transfer of ownership of the water system to the community, and the organization of local water associations to manage the water generation and distribution system.

In introducing the ram pump system to upland communities that do not have easy access to water, AIDFI technicians are able to provide clean, cheap water for household use, livestock raising, aquaculture, and small-scale agriculture. Since reinventing the ram pump technology, AIDFI has fabricated, installed, and transferred 227 ram pumps that now benefit 184 upland communities in Negros Occidental and other provinces across the country. AIDFI has also brought the ram pump technology to help waterless upland communities in other countries; it is is now carrying out complete ram pump technology transfer in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Nepal.

AIDFI continues to innovate on technology for the poor. To increase rural incomes, AIDFI has designed and fabricated an essential oil distiller that can process lemon grass into organic oil for industrial users. It transfers this technology to the farmers and provides packaging and marketing support, and a distribution network that now reaches other countries. Going even further, AIDFI has established a “technopark” in their office premises to actually showcase and demonstrate AIDFI-designed technologies that range from cooking and agricultural implements to a biogas plant and a windmill which can generate up to 800 watts of electricity.

In promoting grassroots enterprise, AIDFI has placed the premium on small-scale, accessible, low-maintenance technology that is customized for local needs, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and one owned and managed by the people themselves. Its struggle to exist as a viable organization has been most trying in both institutional and human terms, but AIDFI has pioneered a way that has already transformed the lives of thousands of rural families.

In electing Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc., to receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes AIDFI’s collective vision, technological innovations, and partnership practices to make appropriate technologies improve the lives and livelihoods of the rural poor in upland Philippine communities and elsewhere in Asia.