Rotavator Agriculture (Rot_A) @

MANILA: This is all about greening India, greening the Philippines, greening the world. They did. The Indians broke the Guinness World Record in number of trees (seedlings) planted within 24 hours in one day, not 24 hours distributed over several days. Early morning Sunday, New Year's Day 2017, I saw the EcoWatch post on Facebook with Katie Pohlman reporting on 800,000 Indians attempting to plant 50,000,000 trees to break the Guinness record of 847,275 trees set by Pakistanis in 2013 (12 July 2016, EcoWatch, ecowatch.com ). Samantha Cole of Popular Science reported the exact numbers: more than 800,000 students, government officials and volunteers gathered in India's populous State of Uttar Pradesh and planted 49.3 million trees in 24 hours (14 July 2016, Popular Science, popsci.com ). Actually, breaking the Guinness was only part of the plan. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav told the people, "The world has realized that serious efforts are needed to reduce car...

MANILA: Is the price of rice right? Is the value added from the farm gate to the dinner table received by the farmer right? When there is a rise in the price of rice, whose prize is it? The right answer may shock you. We'll get to that in a little while. MY sent me early this morning, Monday, 19 December 2016, an email link to "Benin Rice" (AFP, 19 December 2016, Manila Times , manilatimes.net ), and I've been reading that news. Benin is a democratic "presidential republic" in West Africa ( Wikipedia ). It was once a territory of France, long enough so that the official Benin language is French. Benin is tropical Sub-Saharan, highly dependent on subsistence agriculture. The largest religious denomination is Roman Catholic, followed by Islam, Vodun and Protestantism. Sounds familiar. Benin has 2 dry seasons (December to April and July to September), and 2 rainy seasons (April to July and September to November). Unique. The Africa Rice Center, or Af...

MANILA: Through the front-view mirror of Solid North Bus 1608 coming from Asingan going to Cubao, I took the photograph Sunday, 09 October 2016 at 0757 hours somewhere in Tarlac. Rice drying poorly on the shoulders of the highway. If you can't get to 14% moisture content, you rice is wet and will sell poorly. The photograph is perfect, if I may say so myself: It suggests 3 things actually, literally and figuratively. 1, The sunlit part of the road reminds us that the rice farmer has no problem drying his palay under the sun on a public road, except of course passing vehicles when they have to take the shoulder of the road either side to maneuver. Actually, he has no other choice. 2, The shaded part of the road reminds us that the rice farmer has a problem drying his palay either (a) under the sun because the sun is hiding and there is not enough sunshine to heat the grains and evaporate the unwanted moisture in them, or (b) when it suddenly rains, as it ...

MANILA: Climate scientists are alarmed that the Earth's atmosphere has reached what they believe is its carbon dioxide threshold of 400 ppm, which to them is the tipping point to the end of the world. Lauren Tousignant says, "This is the worst news for life on Earth" (29 September 2016, New York Post , nypost.com ). Ophelia Benson simply says (28 September 2016, butterfliesandwheels.org ): "Bye world." Citing Ralph Keeling, who runs the Scripps Institute for Oceanography's carbon dioxide monitoring program, Brian Kahn says, "Even if the world stopped emitting carbon dioxide tomorrow, what (man) has already put in the atmosphere will linger for many decades to come" ( scientificamerican.com ). To solve a problem, change the problem! What if all the carbon dioxide emitted tomorrow can be captured tomorrow? My photograph has taught me how it can be done. Clue: Keeling's pessimism stems from the fact that climate experts are cl...

MANILA: Today, Friday, the last day of September 2016, I read the omen that Brian Kahn has written in The Guardian about climate change, that "The world passes 400ppm carbon dioxide threshold. Permanently" (28 September 2016, theguardian.com ): In the centuries to come, history books will likely look back on September 2016 as a major milestone for the world’s climate. At a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide is usually at its minimum, the monthly value failed to drop below 400 parts per million (ppm). ¶ That all but ensures that 2016 will be the year that carbon dioxide officially passed the symbolic 400 ppm mark, never to return below it in our lifetimes, according to scientists. Now, now Brian, that is completely off the mark. If climate change is here and we do not or cannot stop it, there will be no centuries to count anymore! In fact, no one will be around to write any history. The BEC Crew puts it in the worst words, saying, "Earth's CO...

MANILA: On Wednesday, 21 September 2016, with my Lumix FZ100 camera, we visited Rolly Andres' hybrid rice farm in the village of Cabaritan in San Manuel, Pangasinan and this is what we saw: tillers full of rich green-yellowing rice panicles that we estimated to yield about 10 tonnes/ha. To be harvested 09 October, or 18 days from then. That visit was a little after mid-day, the wrong time to take photographs. I decided to visit the farm again early this morning, Thursday, 22 September, at just past 0600 hours, because I knew the images would be much better. As you can see. It so happened that it rained the night before, so the air was clean and the leaves had drops of water on them, perfect for close-ups. What you're looking at is only 1 of 300 shots I took. Rolly's source of seeds was the Municipal Agriculture Office of San Manuel, via Danielida Sabado, technician; she gave Rolly 15 kg of TH-82, worth P 4,500. Oh dear! That's P 300/kg. Expensive. Y...