Lockdown Thinking Of Agriculture 4.0, My Journalism 4.0 And Ani & Kita


You are looking at my PC setup in my bedroom/workroom somewhere in Luzon in this lockdown. With it, I can look out & into so many universes even as I am ensconced in my little room and not allowed to go out. 

Did I say I’m enjoying being held up in a room? With my Core i7 14-inch Lenovo laptop and an external 20-inch ViewSonic monitor, yes. When I was being taught, initially, digital writing during the Niños Inocentes Day in 1985, with WordStar 1, I was only thinking it made my writing & editing sessions so much easier, but it was still work. I never thought I would enjoy working in the digital world – in a few weeks, work became play.

You may know that I am already 79, thank God. Question: How can a senior citizen enjoy writing nonfiction, even if there is payment? Isn’t it a burden on the eyes and memory? Answer: On the eyes, yes. On the memory, yes! But that is why you can adjust the text size and clarity in Windows 10. And no, you don’t have to memorize grammatical rules or names etcetera – you can always surf the Web.

So, here I am enjoying myself blogging away! (Note the clock.) My latest blog is called Journalism 4.0 – deliberately, I took the name after Agriculture 4.0, of which everyone says is “The Future Of Farming Technology.” That is to say, the emphasis is on technology. Of it, Oliver Wyman says[1]:

The World Government Summit launched a report called Agriculture 4.0 – The Future Of Farming Technology, in collaboration with Oliver Wyman for the 2018 edition of the international event. The report addresses the four main developments placing pressure on agriculture to meeting the demands of the future: Demographics, Scarcity of natural resources, Climate change, and Food waste.

So, Agriculture 4.0 is dedicated to:
(1) satisfying the world’s billions of human mouths,
(2) conserving natural resources,
(3) adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change, and
(4) avoiding food waste.

High goals for the World Government Summit!
But not high enough.

Given all that, Agriculture 4.0 does not give equal attention to the poverty of the world’s billions of people. Even if all the technologies generated under Agriculture 4.0 fit the criteria of appropriate technology articulated by Ernest F Schumacher in the early 1960s, poverty is not in the agenda. I must say:

Agriculture 4.0 is poor!
In the Philippines, Ani & Kita should make it rich!

How? Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie’s Masaganang Ani at Mataas na Kita (bounteous harvest & bountiful income, my translation) will make it a dream come true.

I remember what I now call the UN 4.0, which is it’s strategy for Sustainable Development: technical feasibility, economic viability, environmental soundness, and social acceptability.

No matter how advanced your farming technology is, how sophisticated, how ingenious and how accurate, if it is not acceptable by the poor, it is not acceptable.

And yes, Journalism 4.0, we must not forget the trees!@517



[1] https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2018/feb/agriculture-4-0--the-future-of-farming-technology.html

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