Help, 2! Crop Rotation To Produce The New Rich Rice Farmer, To Help Him Raise Rice Right!

After noting that PhilRice is not into Cover Cropping as one of its recommendations for Filipino farmers – see my 30 Aug 2024 article, “Help, 1! Cover Crops To Produce The New Rich Rice Farmer, To Help Him Raise Rice Right!” Regenerative Agriculture, blogspot.com – I’m glad PhilRice is into Crop Rotation, as I see this practice as one of the 13 Regenerative  Agriculture (RA) practices that can help rice farmers grow themselves out of poverty! (Because the PH government is not trying to do that or is silent on zeroing the poverty numbers of Filipino farmers! (I don’t know why – and I’m not going to wait for explanations; I am doing what I can as a writer who happens to be an agriculturist and much bothered about the millions of poor Filipino farmers!

(image from m13educators)

Wikipedia says (en.wikipedia.org):

Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. This practice reduces the reliance of crops on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, along with the probability of developing resistant pests and weeds.

So!

IRRI says about its long-term study (lte.irri.org):

The rice-upland crop rotation experiment started at IRRI in 1993 to look into the sustainability of double cropping systems.., creating an alternately aerobic-anaerobic soil conditions for maize-rice, and continuously anaerobic for rice-rice systems. There are two cropping seasons (i) dry season (January-April) and (ii) wet season (June-October). Soil analyses indicated a strong effect of crop rotation on total soil carbon and nitrogen. Consequently, it evolved into looking at sustainability (in) these double cropping systems, with and without tillage, in the presence and absence of crop residues. Now, it serves as a field laboratory for providing answers to the potential challenges that these systems may create in the long term.

The crop rotation study started in 1993, or 31 years ago – and the above unclear statement is all that IRRI is saying about the results!? Nothing about advantage/s to the farmer?

The PhilRice Web Team says, “Dr Aurora M Corales, supervising science research specialist based at…PhilRice said ‘that synchronous planting and crop rotation could help minimize pest and disease occurrences…’” Nothing said about minimizing costs and thereby maximizing returns from farming!

“Crop rotation is the cheapest and most effective way to improve crop yields and soil fertility,” say Boris Boincean & David Dent (01 Sept 2019, Farming The Black Earth, link.springer.com). So! Don’t the scientists of IRRI, PhilRice, and UP Los Baños know that?! If they don’t, there is much work for them to do! I note that PhilRice is 39 years old, IRRI is 64 years old, and UPLB is 116 years old. Yet. not a single one of their scientists and experts can claim they have helped a single farmer improve his standard of living, from poor to rich, relying on his blood, sweat and tears.

Help! Help IRRI and PhilRice and UPLB help the farmers rise from poverty and stay up there!@517

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Help! Only Then Can Hope Be Coming To The Farmers. Help!

Image
“Help!” shout The Beatles. Most Filipino farmers, I’m guessing now, are actually minding their own business and are not thinking of asking help from anyone to get them out of poverty. Or, which is the same, they don’t know how to get out of poverty! And? And the government is not helping them any. Sympathizing, yes, but not helping them get out, So! On how to help the millions, plural, of Filipino farmers get out of poverty, I have something to offer. Some 24 years after starting to blog earnestly, via WordPress . com , today via Blogspot.com, at almost 84 (everyday praying to God for more years, at least up to 111, Lord), via this new blog of mine “ Regenerative Agriculture , 13” (Good luck!) – I am dedicating the rest of my life to these 13 practices of Regenerative Agriculture (RA) that I have collected in my decades of browsing the Internet (alphabetized): 1, Cover Cropping 2, Crop Rotation 3, Farm Crops + Tree Crops (Agroforestry) 4, Green Manuring 5, Intercropping 6,
Read more

Help, 1! Cover Crops To Produce The New Rich Rice Farmer, To Help Him Raise Rice Right!

Image
Correct me if I am wrong, but our PH government is not directly helping our farmers rise from poverty and stay up there! No such plans that I know. And my alma mater, UP Los Baños , neither has plans nor programs nor studies on how to produce rich farmers out of poor farmers! It’s not that they don’t know how – it’s that they are not paying attention ! Of course, UP Los Baños knows about most if not all of the 13 practices in Regenerative Agriculture that I listed previously (see my 29 Aug 2024 article, “Help! Only Then Can Hope Be Coming To The Farmers. Help!,” Regenerative Agriculture , blogspot.com ). How can I, an alumnus, explain the lack of attention of my alma mater to farming practices that are low-costs-high-returns? Don’t ask me – ask them! Our farmers will rise from poverty if their earnings are great! That is, their costs are low and their returns are high – I don’t knw of any government official concerned about raising the standard of earnings of Filipino farmers, an
Read more