When Sweet Corn Is A Sour Story – When Sweet Sorghum Is Sweeter!

Things fall apart. Tumumba halos lahat ng sweet corn namin. By batch sana ang harvest, a lot of them are still immature. (All our sweet corn plants went down. We were planning to harvest by batch.)

Today, Tuesday, 27 October 2020, here is Earwin Belen sharing a Facebook sharing by Tonio Flores, all below in italics, in Taglish, on a current crop that went down with that typhoon (not named) that got away (PH, exact location not stated).

Tonio, typhoons are realities we cannot ignore. If not now, then. (Tonio does not volunteer the size of the cornfield. It must be big because he is bothered by the damage.)

Proud pa naman kami sa production methods nito. We were very mindful of environmentally sound pest control methods, crop nutrition etc. That's more than two months worth of hard work and resources. (Too, we were proud of our production methods.)

Tonio, sometimes Mother Nature destroys our best works. “The best plans of mice and men.” The one environmental thing you were not mindful was the one that occurred.

This is farming for you, we are under the grace and mercy of natural forces.

Always, remember that! Now, what I learned years ago in Legaspi City when now Congressman Joey Salceda was declared Climate Champion by the United Nations, and we members of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists attended a climate change conference of government officials – is that there are 2 things we can do about climate change:

(1) adaptation – you change tactics; and
(2) mitigation – you reduce the losses.

Tonio, I don’t know how you are going to reduce your losses now – aside from collecting crop insurance. But I certainly have advice on adaptation:

Change your crop
to sweet sorghum!

You did not know but sweet sorghum can go down in a typhoon – then recover fully. PH sweet sorghum varieties came from India via the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, when now-Secretary of Agriculture William Dar was Director General. Mr Dar introduced sweet sorghum via Mariano Marcos State University in Batac. Tony Arcangel willingly planted the ICRISAT variety; I visited him in March 2012, and already he had 10 products, among them cookies, soap, syrup, vinegar and wine. Mr Tony is the President of Bapamin Enterprises. I suggest strongly that you correspond with him.

Next question is, how do we make sure that resilience is supported culturally and structurally and not to be left in the hands of our farmers only?

About resilience, or the “ability to recover quickly from illness, change or misfortune” (TheFreeDictionary.com), I recommend being a member of a multi-purpose cooperative. More importantly, connect with the Department of Agriculture, DA and find out what more assistances (plural) the DA can offer you under “The New Thinking for Agriculture” under Secretary of Agriculture William Dar.

Big plans for 2021, we're looking forward to ways we can work together. Production, education and new ways of engaging with food and farming.

Cooperation, Partnership – that’s The Spirit of the New PH Agriculture!@517