Will the Pinoy's path lead to sustainable development?

MANILA: When friends ask me if I'm in favor of this or that GMO, I always tell them, "I don't discourage GMO. I don't encourage it either."

Yes, it's a safe answer, because if GMO turns out to be good, I'm innocent of saying anything against it. No, it's not a safe answer, because if GMO turns out to be bad, I'm guilty of not having said anything against it. Edmund Burke, British author and political thinker, said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." I want to be good.

A GMO is a genetically modified organism, as in the Bt eggplant, where something has been extracted from the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that is then introduced into the genetic makeup of the seed (the crop) to fight stem borers and avoid having its grower (the farmer) spray an insecticide, say Carbaryl. The logic? An ounce of Bt is worth a pound of Carbaryl.

In my view, both sides, those in favor of GMO and those against, have only logical fallacies to present, even if they don't know it. On one hand, it is a logical fallacy to say that GMO is unsafe, because there is no proof. On the other hand, it is a logical fallacy to say that GMO is safe, because there is no proof either! At best, it's a stalemate.

I am fully aware of logical fallacies; I wrote the book on logical fallacies! This was at the height of the controversy involving the congressional bill on Reproductive Health (RH) and Senator Tito Sotto, who was against its passage and who was accused of plagiarism in presenting medical opinions against RH. I defended the Senator even if he didn't ask for it, even if I didn't know him from Adam, on both issues, RH and plagiarism. The title of my book is The Emperors' New Clothes, with the logic emperors' names running the alphabet from A to Z, or 26 emperors in all. In that book dedicated to the RH lovers, I pointed out the logical errors of their ways.

Bertrand Russell said, "Logical errors are, I think, of greater practical importance than many people believe; they enable their perpetrators to hold the comfortable opinion on every subject in turn." On one hand, if you fail to realize your logical fallacy, you will feel at ease thinking of yourself having contributed to society. On the other hand, if the other fellow does not realize your logical fallacy, he will feel ill-at ease thinking of you having said something of social value.

You can email me for a free ecopy of my book if you wish, frankahilario@gmail.com. Logic is serious business to me; my book has undergone 8 revisions, the last just today, 07 August 2015. It's 212 pages – you'll enjoy reading the story essays even if you don't agree with the side I took.) By the way, the RH people won, but not logic. I have forgiven them.

You can't beat a philosopher who happens to be a creative writer at the same time. A natural-born pilosopong Ilocano, at the University of the Philippines, I got a grade of 1.0 in Western Thought. I am a diehard Roman Catholic. And yes, my wife and I have 12 children, all childbirths natural, unaided by modern technology. I have always been prolific. I have 2020 long essays already published in my one-stop blog, A Magazine Called Love, as of 03 July 2015, and thus my claim remains unchallenged: "the world's most creative writer online" (check it out here: blogspot.com). And I am the first and so far the only winner of the UP award Outstanding Alumnus for Creative Writing granted in 2011 by the UP Los Baños Alumni Association – the UP Alumni Association had not been creative enough to be the first to brainstorm such an award. The UPAA has not found its genius; the UPLBAA already has.

Thinking of the 2016 Presidential elections and climate change and what we can do about both, right now, this genius want to give the Manila Presidentiables the ultimate test:

Show me that voting for you will result in sustainable development.

If my vision of your vision bears the fruits of sustainability, you are my Presidentiable.

How about you: Is your Presidentiable aware of climate change? We need to adapt; we need primate change for climate change, including the climate of poverty. Today, we need a visionary leader to lead us to a sustainable society.

So now, The Great Question is: What is sustainable development?

World-renowned US economist Jeffrey Sachs launched on Monday, 03 August 2015, the local chapter of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) in Manila, along with NEDA Director General Arsenio Balisacan (Chris Schnabel, rappler.com). However, the report did not explain what sustainable development is all about according to Sachs; yes, Sachs wrote a book The Age Of Sustainable Development, but when he discusses it, he does not define the term; neither does the website of the SDSN of which he is the Director (unsdsn.org), so I am forced to ignore Sachs, because he did not and does not find it necessary to define terms of reference. If we don't agree on how we define the terms, it will be a logical fallacy to think that we can ever agree on anything.

Why is the definition of sustainable development crucial, key, essential, critical, vital, decisive? Because if your definition points only to poverty reduction but not poverty elimination, I can see another logical fallacy there!

And so from the year 2015, I go back 28 years to 1987, when the Brundtland Report (Our Common Future) came out, an output of the World Commission on Environment and Development that was created by the United Nations in 1983. The Chair was Ms Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Prime Minister of Norway. In her Introduction to the Report (downloadable as pdf here, un-documents.net), she says:

"A global agenda for change" – this was what the World Commission on Environment and Development was asked to formulate. It was an urgent call by the General Assembly of the United Nations: to propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond; to recommend ways (that) concern for the environment may be translated into greater co-operation among developing countries and between countries at different stages of [economic] and social development and lead to the achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives that take account of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment, and development.

And this is how the Brundtland Report defines the term, in 23 words:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

That is a beautiful statement and often quoted, but it is not quite complete; it is followed by these 51 important words that refine the definition:

It contains within it two key concepts:

*The concept of "needs," in particular, the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and

*The idea of "limitations" imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

That is to say, the definition of sustainable development according to the Brundtland Report comprises of 23 plus 51 words that cannot be taken separately.

To explain, this is how I look at parts of the Brundtland statement:

Needs – I love it that the Brundtland definition emphasizes meeting the needs of the world's poor, which I believe is the ultimate measure of sustainability: if your society meets mostly the needs of the rich, what kind of society is that? Note that this has 2 aspects: meeting present needs and future needs.

Limitations – Expanding without exploding the idea of the environment, I want to extract from this concept 5 embedded thoughts: natural resources and their workability, access, renewability, and loss.

(1) Natural resources – They are parts of the environment such as soil, vegetation, air and water. Exploited, these are sources of public goods to meet public needs. If they are exploited merely or mainly for private gain, right at the beginning we can say that these resources are not sustainable.

(2) Workability of resources – We need technology to work with any of the natural resources. If technology is privately owned, or if the fruits of such exploitation are not for the common good, therefore, such workability is not sustainable.

(3) Access to resources – Only the rich or well-positioned have much access to the natural resources. If they work only for themselves, of if the poor are not assisted in accessing any of the natural resources, that cannot translate to sustainable development.

(4) Renewability of resources – Both the rich and poor exploit natural resources beyond their capacities to replenish themselves. Because of ignorance or denial of the common good, both sides contribute directly to unsustainable development.

(5) Loss of resources. Chemical agriculture teaches the farmer to utilize non-renewable resources (fertilizers from petroleum), and control methods that destroy natural populations (pesticides), that destroy the balance of nature among species. Modern cultivation methods result in soil erosion and loss of soil fertility.

To repeat: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." And remember, the emphasis of Our Common Future is on the needs of the world's poor.

Abraham Maslow says one of man's needs at the 2nd level is employment. More than simply employment, as farmers employ themselves, man needs a steadily rising income if his lifestyle is to be sustainable.

And as the history of agriculture has shown in the Philippines, as in many other countries, poor individual farmers will never enjoy sustainable lives.

I say the Philippine government, through the Department of Agriculture (DA), and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), learning from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India, must aim for inclusive market-oriented development (IMOD), because in the IMOD strategy:

(1)     Emphasis is on the needs of the poor farmers.

(2)     The ultimate aim is sustainability of improved farmers' lives.

The IMOD strategy was conceived by ICRISAT on the 11th year that Filipino science leader William Dar was Director General of ICRISAT. William Dar knew poverty personally, as his family could not afford to send him to college – his uncle could and did. Thank God for uncles with a heart.

Under IMOD, the farmers in association become their own merchants and enjoy the fruits of their labors to the full. As direct suppliers, the market is theirs, the values come to them, not simply begged from the traders and exporters, who are uncles without a heart.

Not only improved lives but sustained improved lives. To carry out IMOD, I believe that the sustainable lives of farmers can come with their own sweat working with cooperatives, working with and for themselves.

We can learn from resurgent Cuba. Today, in agriculture, the news is that "Cuban cooperatives present a new economic model" (Jonathan Wolfe, 25 February 2015, PRI, pri.org):

The cooperatives are seen by some as a way of opening the country up to capitalism and privatization while maintaining some of the revolution's collectivist ideals. And so far, Cubans seem to like them. For the first time in decades, these enterprises give workers a stake in their success, and allow their members to take home the money they earn.

In their review article "The Paradox of Cuban Agriculture," Miguel A Altieri & Fernando R Funes-Monzote write (01 January 2012, monthlyreview.org):

When Cuba faced the shock of lost trade relations with the Soviet Bloc in the early 1990s, food production initially collapsed due to the loss of imported fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, parts, and petroleum. The situation was so bad that Cuba posted the worst growth in per capita food production in all of Latin America and the Caribbean. But the island rapidly re-oriented its agriculture to depend less on imported synthetic chemical inputs, and became a world-class case of ecological agriculture. This was such a successful turnaround that Cuba rebounded to show the best food production performance in Latin America and the Caribbean over the following period, a remarkable annual growth rate of 4.2 percent per capita from 1996 through 2005, a period in which the regional average was 0 percent.

If Cuba can have world-class agriculture, why can't the Philippines?

The authors also said:

The opening of local agricultural markets and the existence of strong grassroots organizations supporting farmers – for example, the National Association of Small-Scale Farmers (ANAP, Asociacion Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños) ... contributed to this achievement.

What contributed to Cuba's growth? Natural farming (ecological agriculture) and cooperatives. In 2006, controlling only 25% of the farmland, farmers produced 65% plus of Cuba's food. "Most farmers belong to the ANAP and almost all of them belong to cooperatives." Farm production increased despite using 72% lower farm chemicals in 2007 than in 1988, true for vegetables, roots and tubers.

In Cuba, there are 383,000 urban farms covering 50,000 ha producing 1.5 million tons a year using no synthetic chemicals. Urban farms supply 70% of the fresh vegetables consumed in cities such as Havana and Villa Clara. Thus, "Cuba (is) the only country in the world that was able to recover its food production by adopting agroecological approaches under extreme economic difficulties" – no imported fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, parts, and petroleum.

Observations of agricultural performance after extreme climatic events in the last two decades have revealed the resiliency of peasant farms to climate disasters. Forty days after Hurricane Ike hit Cuba in 2008, researchers conducted a farm survey in the provinces of Holguin and Las Tunas and found that diversified farms exhibited losses of 50 percent compared to 90 to 100 percent in neighboring farms growing monocultures. Likewise agro-ecologically managed farms showed a faster productive recovery (80 to 90 percent forty days after the hurricane) than monoculture farms.

I will equate agro-ecological approaches in agriculture here with natural farming, that is, growing crops and livestock emulating Mother Nature. In Cuban practice, natural farming uses any combination of local technologies such as worm composting, beneficial organisms, multiple cropping, crop rotation, intercropping, crop & livestock farming systems, agroforestry, and generating own sources of energy such as using human and animal labor, biogas and windmills, plus the growing of biofuel crops Jatropha and cassava.

Natural farming and cooperatives have brought prosperity to Cuba – why not the Philippines?

I didn't know about what I shall now call The Cuban Farm Revolution until today, but I have already declared in the Philippines a Coop Revolution ("IMODest Proposal. A Coop Revolution for millions of poor farmers," 28 September 2013, A Magazine Called Love, blogspot.com). Borrowing now from Shakespeare's Hamlet, 'tis a consummation, devoutly to be wish'd."

Not yet; sustainable development is not easy to achieve, even in Red Cuba. That is why they are turning to cooperatives. The coop consciousness is yet to pervade the country; the Cuban cooperatives are only beginning to spread. Still, I can see that the Cubans have yet to capture the real power of cooperatives.

In Asia in the 1970s, there was Green Revolution 1.0 with Miracle Rice; today, there is the Green Revolution 2.0 happening with Green Super Rice (see my "Green Super IRRI," A Magazine Called Love, blogspot.com) – all welcome, but you will note that the outputs of both revolutions are higher yields but not necessarily higher and sustainable incomes. Technology guarantees higher yields but not higher rewards. Cuba must learn not only to produce but to reward its farmers for values added along the production to consumption chain, and to sustain those gains, for the farmers to emancipate themselves from poverty.

In one word, sustainability is what my idea of the Coop Revolution promises, via the Super Coop that I have already described (see also my essay, "Whose inclusive capitalism? Our poor are poor out of our poor thinking," 16 February 2015, A Magazine Called Love, blogspot.com). Through the formation of Super Coops all over the Philippines, I am advocating a Coop Revolution because it's fast, nationwide, distributive, sustainable, and has a multiplier effect.

There is a bigger reason why I am pushing for Super Coops: I see them as the only ones who can emancipate the poor farmer members from poverty. It works like this:

The Super Coops will have a board with multi-sectoral representation, including from the local government units, science, academe, business, church groups, civic groups, philanthropy and the poor farmers themselves, who should number at least 3. The board will generate the policies for the Super Coop; the church groups will see to that there is no immorality going on; the business groups will make sure the coop is run as a business model; the philanthropists should be happy giving assistance; and the poor farmers should insist that most if not all projects of the coop are geared towards helping them rise from poverty and stay up there. Most of all, the Super Coop will do the marketing for the farmers, connecting directly with consumers and not the merchants or traders, who merely dictate the prices.

In Cuba, the cooperatives "give workers a stake in their success, and allow their members to take home the money they earn." But even that is not enough. The Cuban cooperatives must learn to be the direct marketing arms of their members. We can all learn out of Africa, where the women act as farmer merchants employing an inventory credit system called warrantage, where they have been able to increase farm income by up to 113% in 6 months! Such arrangements guarantee sustainability, both for the farmers and the lenders, the banks. A triumph for the women; the women have been so good the men want to join their association! That is in Nigeria. (For more of this, see my essay, "Peanuts for your thoughts. Out of Africa, where the women beat the men," 03 November 2012, blogspot.com. Or ask William Dar, who was 15 years Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, who now holds office as the President of the InangLupa Movement and holding office at the Bureau of Soils & Water Management at the DA compound in Diliman, Quezon City; I only wrote the story, but it was his ICRISAT who made that female dream come true.)

In Cuba, the Philippines or anywhere in the world, until the farmers learn to be the merchants themselves, the market will always betray the farmers and they will never set themselves free from poverty.