WILLs

MANILA: "Rice is life" I remember that being proclaimed by the United Nations as the theme for the International Year of the Rice that it declared in 2004. If rice was the staple food of half of the world's population, the UN was correct. Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that in fact the UN was thinking too narrow, that there is something more basic in human life than rice, and you cannot produce rice without it, while it is true also in none-rice-eating countries:

Water is life.

And I mean not only including safe water, river water, underground water, sea water, icebergs, snow and clouds. As the image shows, posterized from my original photograph of the Sinapog part of the Chico River in Asingan, Pangasinan, irrigation water is obvious. It's the hidden water that is the secret to successful agriculture in a climate-changing world.

No, "Water is life" is not an insight of mine. Already, among others, there is a WaterIsLife.com on Facebook (charity group); WaterIsLifeInternational.org (safe water); mcgill.ca/waterislife (fresh water); davidsuzuki.org (water conservation); ec.europa.eu (water protection); and usaid.gov (water supply in Gaza).

The acronym for the slogan "Water Is Life" is WIL. The WIL advocates above as well as many others are all referring to the visible water forms, mostly drinkable water. That's how important water is and, as those distinguished websites show, everybody knows that water is life. So, let's not forget that WIL.

Yes, but on insight, I have transformed WIL into something bigger than itself, as I am about to show you. I know not everyone knows that the most important forms of water are either ignored or invisible, and they are accessible wherever there are farms and fields. And I say this as a BS Agriculture graduate from the University of the Philippines (UP '65), teacher (with a Civil Service Professional license, 1964), a very wide reader (since high school), an intensively creative writer (since 1975), and indefatigable blogger (since 2007). For their stories, if some newsmen (embracing newshen) practice investigative journalism, for my essays I practice interrogative journalism, where they examine beginning mostly with the negatives and I examine beginning mostly with the positives. It's not genius, it's the attitude that counts.

And no, they don't teach even at UP Los Baños that there are what I shall refer to now as The 6 Hidden Forms Of Water For Life that are crucial for farms and gardens, fields and pastures, especially now with the advent of climate change, such forms which I shall briefly discuss below (and in more detail in upcoming essays):

(1)     Moisture in the air – Even if the air feels dry and the soil is cracked, there is moisture, and this can be "harvested" for thirsty mouths of people and roots of crops.

(2)     Moisture in the soil – There is always moisture even in a bare "dry soil" until it turns to dust.

(3)     Capillary water – After the gravitational water has drained off the field, what remains is a film of water around the soil grains, subject to capillary movement.

(4)     Moisture in crop refuse  – One can see, for instance, healthy if old stalks of rice right after harvest, the remaining standing stems are ready to grow again, for a ratoon crop, that is, they still have nutrients and moisture left in them.

(5)     Moisture in organic matter – At the beginning of the planting season, farmers plow their fields, harrow out the weeds and other vegetation growing, collect them everywhere, and dry them to burn. Aside from the lost of nutrients in those decaying organic matter, there is much moisture in them untapped by the unsuspecting.

(6)     Moisture in humus – Humus is what results when organic matter has completely decayed; it is an excellent source of nutrients as well as water for crops, not to mention for weeds if the benefits of the decomposition of once-living plants by microorganisms are ignored by farmer or gardener.

 

To encapsulate the 6 forms of water for life, to take advantage of all the water benefits that they can bring us, I'm offering the world my concept of WILLs, which is the acronym for "Water Is Life, Love, in both science & sense." I mean, the local weather bureau has warned us that there will be a prolonged El Niño dry spell the rest of the year, so what are we waiting for?! Let's WILLs it!

It's time the Department of Agriculture of the Philippines package a farmer's program whereby the lessons of The 6 Hidden Forms Of Water For Life are demonstrated in strategic sites all over the country ASAP. The results will effectively show the farmers wherever they are that drought is only the beginning of this year's farming, not the end.

Naturally, I'm looking at the DA to exercise its imagination first. "Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere" – Albert Einstein. "Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will" – George Bernard Shaw.

But more than imagination, the DA needs to exercise its political will. "Nothing will work unless you do" – Maya Angelou. "What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it, that's another matter" – Peter Drucker.

And one of my favorite quotes:

"Let’s go invent tomorrow instead of worrying about what happened yesterday" – Steve Jobs.

Don't forget: We are what we will. We are not what we will not. Water is life. We are what we will the water to be, or not to be. To will or not to will, that is the question today.

"Faith can move mountains, but don’t be surprised if God hands you a shovel" – unknown. So yes, as my further contribution to the WILLs movement, I want to use the written word, the written will as the ultimate test for the candidate for the next President of the Philippines. How? Simple:

Considering the perverse climate change and the pervasive poverty in the country, I submit that the best next President of the Philippines will have an outline of a national program that impoverishes climate change and at the same time enriches the poor citizens of my country. Let's WILLs it!