Revolutionary Farm Family Planning. Continuing challenge to ICRISAT

MANILA: On February 2013, Senior Writer of WIRED Magazine Steven Levy & others dared readers to "think big" (on pages 65-75) with 7 radical ideas, with this tagline on the cover: "One massive idea can change the world. Here are 7" – and these are: (1) Make airplanes rechargeable. (2) Fuel the planet with micromachines. (3) Spray WiFi hot spots on everything. (4) Turn deserts into power plants. (5) Put digital displays in your eyes. (6) Declare war on incoming asteroids. (7) Build skycrapers out of diamonds.

Great! But none is radical enough, and even all of them combined is limited in the size of the target. They are all private business-oriented, and not a single great idea declares war on poverty, and that is where the world's single greatest challenge lies. 500 million farm families times 4 in a household equals 2 billion lives, the world's single greatest number.

But who gives a damn about any farm family? If the world's newspapers are to be believed that they give what readers want, then hardly anybody in the world wants family farming!

2014 is the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF), and my endless Google Search has shown me that scarcely any mass media people on Planet Earth have been/are interested in family farming, and nobody, zero, zilch among the mass media people in the Philippines!

Here's my proof. Googling for (note the double quotes and the qualifier "OR"):
"family farm" OR "family farming"
yielded me 251,000 plus words, from an over-extended Search to be sure – 500 plus pages single-spaced , 8.5"x11" at 12-pt font – so now I know without a doubt that about the IYFF, the Manila papers had
no news last January, and
no news last February, and
no news last March, and
no news last April, and
no news last May, and
no news last June, and
no news last July, and
no news last August, and
no news last September, and
no news last October, and
no news this November!

In fairness, India's newspapers are not much better; only 2 papers reported on the IYFF and with exactly the same content on 2 different dates: Manish Raj, 06 June 2014 ("Chennai to host global meet on family farming, focus on small holdings," timesofindia.indiatimes.com), and ANS (author not named, Chennai to host conference on 'International Year of Family Farming'," 12 June 2014, thehindu.com).

In contrast, when I googled for
ICRISAT "family farm" OR "family farming"
I got 81,000 results. For the sake of argument, assuming that only 50% of those web pages actually link ICRISAT with "family farm" and/or "family farming" and others are repeated links – 40,500 is still an awesome figure, indicating ICRISAT's institutional interest in family farms and/or farming families. So don't be surprised that I'm writing about ICRISAT again.

Meanwhile, why are those Manila papers not talking about it at all when the IYFF was proposed by the Philippines and this November the celebration will officially end on the 27th of the month and will be celebrated in Manila, and President Noynoy Aquino knows it?! (He signed Deep Roots, the FAO report on the IYFF, which I discuss below). The Manila papers did not even mention that the Department of Agriculture (DA) and Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) formally launched the IYFF in the Philippines; sad to say, from another source, I learned that this was on 26 June 2014 at the Bureau of Soils & Water Management at Visayas Avenue in Quezon City (da.gov.ph) – that very launching in my country was 6 months late into the year! Unforgivable, as the IYFF was launched actually last year yet, on 22 November 2013 in New York, by the United Nations! (ANS, fao.org).
There was 1 lonely exception: On 15 October 2014, the Manila Bulletin came out with the story "Awareness: 'Family farming: Feeding the world, caring for the earth,'" mb.com.ph, but 4 of the 5 paragraphs dealt in fact with World Food Day, 16 October!

Ignorance is inexcusable in the case of the mass media whether inside or outside the Philippines. Ignorance in this case means the mass media have been ignoring the greatest news for the greatest number of people in this country, or any country for that matter.

According to Jose Graziano da Silva, Director General of FAO (2014, Deep Roots, fao.org),
The United Nations chose 2014 as the IYFF in order to recognize and bolster the contribution of family farmers. Out of 570 million farms in the world, 500 million are family owned, making the well-being of farm families inextricably woven into the overall well-being of societies, with tremendous implications for food production and sustainability.

The slogan of the IYFF is "Feeding the world, caring for the earth."

So, there are 500 million family-owned farms in the world – and the world is worried about feeding the world?! There must be something wrong with the farm family, right? Or with the whole system.
Deep Roots is a FAO publication that arose from the celebration of the IYFF, 257 pages in all (cited above). It contains regional perspectives, country perspectives, but there is no executive summary of the content, no consensus arrived at, so it cannot help us form our own opinion about family farming.
So we turn to ICRISAT. On 27 October 2014, Director General William Dar said (witblog.icrisat.org).

Bridging the yield gap with the green revolution toolbox in large holdings may be a route taken by some decision-makers and investors, but this route is unsustainable and excludes the millions of small family farms. Many environmentally-friendly and affordable technologies and practices could do good for the planet and for family farmers.

The mass media don't care, so they will always be clueless – even clueless about being clueless. In any case, we have the Internet and social media, so we can all thank God! To not be clueless about family farming, to be clear about what we are (what they are not) talking about, let's stop first and answer these basic questions:
What makes family?
What makes farming?

This gentleman insists on family, not gender, sorry ladies. Now, what is a family? From the American Heritage Dictionary (my favorite): a fundamental social group in society typically consisting of one or two parents and their children. From Collins English Dictionary: a primary social group consisting of parents and their offspring, the principal function of which is provision for its members.

I reject my favorite's definition by10%; I accept Collins' 100% as my lawfully and logically defined word, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part!

Therefore, the Fundamental 3 Ps of Family are: Parents, Progeny, Provision for Members. Biological father and mother, biological child; family providing itself food, shelter, clothing and wellness, among others. That definitely includes broken families and certainly excludes same-sex relationships of any kind, legalized or not.

In fact, in Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, Family is ranked high, coming up from Physiological Needs (food, shelter, clothing), to Safety Needs (personal, financial, health & well-being, accidents/illness), to Love & Belonging Needs (friendship, intimacy, family), to Esteem Needs and up to Self-Actualization Needs (Wikipedia). If you asked me, with the thought that family is most important, I will revise Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs and put Family in all those levels, helping family members fulfill those needs.

Family. In 1955, Edward Steichen came up with an ambitious exhibit of a collection of photographs collected from around the world, which he titled "The Family of Man" (en.wikipedia.org). Steichen was the Director of the Department of Photography of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); comprising 503 images, the exhibit was first shown at the New York MoMA. However, in national development, the concept of The Family of Man is too broad, it's not a workable concept; it's not SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound. This time, we must be satisfied with the Farm Family.

And what did the Chennai, India meeting I mentioned earlier contribute to the world? The Chennai Declaration was based on the "Asia-Pacific Regional Consultation on the Role of Family Farming in the 21st Century: Achieving the Zero Hunger Challenge by 2025" (mssrf.org). I've counted it, after capturing the text and converting it to Word 2013; the Declaration is all of 1,533 words, including title (my essay, this one, is 2,000 plus); I have read it and I am hugely, gargantuanly disappointed with it, since it views the ultimate good of the farm family's role for the world is as food producer only; the very last words are that "family farming ... is the hope for food for all and forever." The slogan of IYFF is, "Feeding the world, caring for the earth." Food from the farmers; caring for the earth is conservation of resources so that they can sustain their productivity – the missing dimension is the farm family's sustainability.

Meanwhile, the whole world will converge in this capital city of the Philippines 2 weeks from now, on 27 November 2014 to participate in the closing ceremony of the International Year of Family Farming to be held at the New Grand Mayuree Ballroom of the Dusit Thai Hotel in the City of Makati (philcongen-toronto.com). But with The Chennai Declaration signed, sealed and delivered, the closing will just be much ado about nothing outstanding.

Since it seems that it is only the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics that is committed to family farming (see also the Director General's blog, "Can sustainable intensification be the answer to better seeds, soil and family farming?" (27 October 2014, witblog.icrisat.org), I will now challenge ICRISAT to come up with a million-dollar program for the Farm Family – to me, Gender is passé; it is merely relationship, one that emphasizes connections but not commitments to the common good. (I hope the family of Bill & Melinda Gates is so much interested in the farm family!)

I will now go back to my past essay titled "Farmer-to-market research. A challenge to Telangana & ICRISAT" (09 November 2014, iCRiSAT Watch, blogspot.com) and quote myself about what is necessary for a business-minded farm family plan to carry out, borrowing from my own ICRISAT essay cited above:
(1) maximizing soil health
(2) optimizing labor
(3) minimizing costs
(4) maximizing harvests
(5) minimizing postharvest loss
(6) maximizing returns
(7) optimizing household economics.

As the old General Manager and the new Vice Chair of the Board and ex-officio Head of the Education & Training Committee of Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative in my hometown of Asingan, Pangasinan, Philippines, I'm interested myself in any farm family plan aimed at helping the poor farmers emancipate themselves from poverty.

Literally, the Farm Family Plan should be a whole family endeavor; it should be a business concern and, therefore, should include management. According to Henri Fayol, there are 6 functions of management: forecasting, planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling (see also my ICRISAT essay "Advertisements for a DG. ICRISAT at 41, William Dar 14," 01 January 2014, iCRiSAT Watch, blogspot.com). And that's what a family plan for its farming should cover. For the model farm families on research to do farm family planning, ICRISAT & partners should come out with guidelines for the family roundtable to come up with the plan itself, doing:

Forecasting. 
Husband and wife will do some research and based on the results, forecast for the family production, processing, and market realities in their village, surrounding villages, and the province.
Planning. 
The family must agree on what steps to take, work out the scheme to accomplish their common goal of farming for the good of the family.
Organizing. 
The family must be organized so that everyone has tasks to perform to contribute to the fulfillment of the family plan.
Commanding. 
Someone must be in command and it should be the Husband. According to the Bible, the husband is the head of the family and is therefore the chief executive officer.
Coordinating. 
The role of coordinator can be given to the eldest child, male or female, to direct and harmonize all efforts according to the plan.
Controlling. Someone should be in control of the finances and, learning from ICRISAT's experience, it must be the Wife. Because the lady is a champ when it comes to fund allocations, fund transfers, and fund withdrawals.

I was going to advocate for an International Year of Farm Family Planning, but I'm sure the United Nations will have none of it. How about transforming World Food Day to World Farmers' Day instead? The world needs more than food. More to the point, I'm advocating for India (where ICRISAT is based) and the Philippines (where the ICRISAT Director General comes from) to declare their separate 2015 Year of Farm Family Planning celebration. Without farm family planning, the poor farmers in the drylands of Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas will never be emancipated from poverty.

The farm family is an intelligent model or module for working out how people in the drylands can be released from the prison called Poverty. In fact, ICRISAT effectively started on its own approach to this 30 years ago and ending this year, with its Village-Level Studies (1975-1985) conducted in India and Village Dynamics in South Asia project (2009-2014) conducted in South Asia, collecting data and information from specific households, tracking changes over time "to understand the dynamics of rural poverty." With detailed knowledge gathered and insights gained, ICRISAT will endeavor "to break the cycle of hunger and poverty through better-informed decisions that will enrich efforts to improve the plight of small farmers." You have to understand first how people live if you want to help them improve their lives.

Village-level investigations for 3 decades: Since ICRISAT seems to be the only one having done these studies, today it has the incredible opportunity to make a profound difference in the living realities of the poor. All ICRISAT has to do is jump out of the VLS/VDSA collective knowledge, from theory to practice, to the next and bigger phase shaped by Farm Family Planning in the Village, to see to it that families can change their situations from bad to best. It should be a radical total, holistic revolution, empowering the families on what I have termed ICRISAT's Eternal Triangle of Productivity, Profitability, and Sustainability, not only for production as was espoused in the Green Revolution (see also my essay "Sorghum as aggregate good. Conjuring ICRISAT's Eternal Triangle," 26 September 2014, iCRiSAT Watch, blogspot.com).

I note that there are 6 specific aims of the Village Dynamics studies, but I will single out #2, because I see how it relates directly and essentially to what ICRISAT is trying to do:
To understand farmers' response to changing markets, policies and technologies.

Markets:
ICRISAT has been advocating the concept of partner-supported farmer marketing through the strategy called Inclusive Market-Oriented Development (IMOD) of which I have written much since 2010 (try my latest essay "Farmers in business? I thought you'd never ask!" 05 November 2014, iCRiSAT Watch, blogspot.com).

Policies: ICRISAT implements IMOD with public-science-private partnerships, where the national and local government units (public) provide the supporting policies for inclusive market-oriented development. Preferably, the government advocacy is accompanied by funds.

Technologies: 
Essentially, the generation of new and/or improved technologies is what the 15 international agriculture research centers under the CGIAR are trying to do, but ICRISAT is special among them, its works being extra sustainable, the Institute being extra-fertile with ideas and productive with yields. For instance, the Institute has developed, among others, technologies that save – thus, microdosing saves much on fertilizer and the African Market Garden saves much on water.

With markets, policies and technologies as concept partners, ICRISAT should continue to teach the villagers how to turn the farm into a family business, rise from poverty and stay up there – thereby to reach the level of self-actualization that Abraham Maslow dreamed of. When finally the villagers do, that would be the greatest news of, by, and for the greatest number!