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MANILA:  Inclusive  is the single word I'll use to describe what we have in mind about what to do with all those billions of pesos of the coco levy funds. Not the inclusive of NEDA in the Philippines but the inclusive of ICRISAT & Partners in India. My story today is inclusive of my own mistake. Yesterday, at exactly 0815 hours 30 October 2013, I was at the Senate building near Manila Bay off Roxas Blvd behind the GSIS HQ thinking all the while that at 0900 hours would be the public hearing at the Senate presided over by Senator  Cynthia Villar  as Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food. I quickly learned from the guard at the entrance, who went on his way to bring me a printed page announcing activities at the Senate, that there was a public hearing scheduled at 1000 hours on Finance but not on Agriculture & Food. I went up to Rm 503 anyway, and  Sinta , the front girl at Senator Cynthia's office, told me that instead, Senator Cynthia was in Ilocos Norte

MANILA: How do we handle the PhP 100 billion from the coco levy fund of the Martial Law years with so many people wanting to lay their hands on the treasure? First, let us humble ourselves, pray and turn from our dreadful ways. Next, let us learn how the FAO handles funds for poor farmers in the drylands of Africa, and learn how ICRISAT & Partners helps the poor farmers rise from poverty in the drylands of India. The idea from FAO is relatively old; the one from India is recent. We should relate to them both in a new, creative way. Combining the concepts, I'll call the strategy  Inventory Inclusive (In2) . In2, I say, will turn that PhP 100 billion coco levy into 100 billion opportunities for all farmers to rise from poverty. I must differentiate: "Rising income" is not the same as "Rising from poverty." I say to raise income is too modest that it is immodest! "The key is farmer income," says  Rolando Dy , Director of the Center for Food & Agri

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO: I'm beginning to write this in this city in La Union in Northern Philippines. 24 November 2013: I was the facilitator the other day and yesterday, Saturday, for the 2nd installment of a farmers' training under the auspices of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) contracted for by UMIC International, of which we are consultants, under the project titled  Agrarian Reform Community Connectivity and Economic Support Services  (ARCCESS). ARCCESS is unique and brilliant, if you ask me; my congratulations to the DAR. ARCCESS demands the best in you as consultant; it demands the best for the DAR farmers; it demands the best from the farmers too. The Department of Agriculture (DA) should learn from it too, if the DA knows what's good for the farmers. For the farmer beneficiaries of the agrarian reform law, via ARCCESS, the DAR wants  primarily , as according to our Terms of Reference, the "provision of decision-support tools" with the assumption th