PH Aggie Journalists Always Talk Of Innovation But Ignore What SEARCA Now Also Emphasizes – Sustainability

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Before I forget and before anyone completely ignores it, ever since UPLB Professor Glenn B Gregorio became Director of SEARCA 1 year ago, that SEARCA has been innovating and coming out with ideas like Accelerating Transformation Though Agricultural Innovation, ATTAIN (part of its 11th Five-Year Plan).

Despite the implication of balance in the very name 2020, to SEARCA this year is not to be balanced – it has to be innovated on, transformed, modernized, not to mention engaged in “Education and Collective Learning,” which is a SEARCA modernization in itself. Nice touch!

Really, since I am a graduate of UP College of Agriculture, UPCA, now UP Los Baños, where SEARCA is based, I have been in and around this institution since its birth in 1966, when I was a Substitute Instructor in Horticulture at UPCA – but SEARCA has never been this intellectually informed and informationally aggressive.

And so I quote from Leah Lyn D Domingo’s institutional news, “SEARCA Unveils New Strategy To Push Agricultural Innovation[1]” (01 July 2020, SEARCA), saying that from 01 July 2020, SEARCA will from now on be guided to ATTAIN “the transformation of farmers who are stuck in the belief that farming is limited to production, into new farmers operating in a modern agriculture ecology,” as according to Mr Gregorio. He says:

For the next five years, SEARCA commits to accelerate transformation that elevates the quality of life of agricultural families through sustainable livelihoods and access to modern networks and innovative markets.

I especially note the 3 terms caught in that sentence:
sustainable livelihoods
access to modern networks
innovative markets.

Sustainable livelihoods – When you read PH newspapers and magazines, 99% of stories are about successful individuals, mostly professionals and/or those with access to adequate capital. Each of those stories is about a livelihood that is sustainable – only to that individual farmer concerned, not any other farmer, for lack of resources. The success story is not repeatable. The writers of those single success stories mistake sustainability with individual success. And this journalism has been going on for 60 years! (sustainability image from Massage Magazine)

As I am finishing this essay, on Facebook, I see being shared Zac Sarian’s story titled “Farming When Money Is Not A Problem.” Precisely, my friend, money is always a problem to the poor farmer! I am the son of a farmer, and my father was not poor, but he always had a problem with money – he did not know how to save. Which characterizes many Filipino farmers today: They do not know how to save money!

Access to modern networks. “Networks” means both physical and digital. The value chain is a network, and should not be ignored, as often it is. Today, the digital network is for everyone, and you are left far behind if you do not harness its power of translocation!

Innovative markets. With innovation, a country’s economy will thrive. PH aggie entrepreneurs, farmers included, must come up with new or improved products for exports.

Innovation with Sustainability? We can ATTAIN!@517

    [1]https://www.searca.org/news/searca-unveils-new-strategy-push-agricultural-innovation

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