Frank Hilario's Theory Of The Economic Diffusion Of Innovations

MANILA: Looking now at my old photograph of a farmer's hand tractor trailer parked along the national road somewhere in La Union at 2 hours past noon on 21 May 2014, I arrive at this new insight – Where the farmer is & what the state of his equipment happens to be, the farmer's situation is where to start in diffusing new or improved knowledge. (Insight by serendipity. I wasn't looking for this thought; it just occurred to me.) In this situation can be embedded either technology or system or both. In the image above, I can see that the farmer needs technical help in plowing his field more efficiently, incurring the least cost and achieving the most returns. The hand tractor is locally called kuliglig, the brand name for the first local model; the kuliglig is widely used in farmers' fields today.

By the mud in the tracks of the wheels of his hand tractor, I can see that he has been puddling his soil – an age-old tradition that he does not realize destroys the structure of the soil when he should be keeping it and building it further to enrich it. There is only one way to find out more: Visit him and ask questions. And by asking, you already have his ears.

Are our ears ready to learn more to teach more? Now, here is an actual example of the diffusion of science to the world. The field of agriculture has a new system called the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP). Clicking the link on the Facebook post of Pia Ranada's article "World's first global standard for sustainable rice launched in PH" (27 October 2015, Rappler, rappler.com), I find that the launching was done by a group of scientists, companies, and government officials convened by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). IRRI's involvement is because it's worldwide and it's rice; UNEP's involvement is because it has something to do with farmers doing their share in combatting climate change.

I have just downloaded the 2 pdfs mentioned, at about 1040 hours today, Friday, 26 August 2016, almost a year later. Lately, I noticed that Facebook posts don't have to be dated the current week to be posted. You are repeated if you're either important or memorable.

This one is important. I don't remember the SRP making a news splash because it is the world's first, and I'm not surprised because it is all so technical, so uninviting to any newsreader's eyes, let alone those at Facebook. This is science that is sayang because it's intended for the non-scientist but the language is not of the layman. Sayang, so much solid schooling space squandered.

The teaser for Pia's news is this: "The Sustainable Rice Platform Standard aims to promote farmer-friendly, pro-environment, and pro-consumer rice through a scoring system with 46 requirements."

What in the world is "sustainable rice"? And you consider 46 requirements farmer-friendly? This is the journalist looking for a message for the farmer to follow the guidelines – if he understands them. By he, I mean individually the journalist and the farmer. Pia does not explain them.

Reading Pia farther, I find those 46 requirements fall under 8 "aspects of rice cultivation" and these are:

(1)     Farm management
(2)     Pre-planting
(3)     Water use
(4)     Nutrient management
(5)     Pest management
(6)     Harvest and postharvest
(7)     Health and safety
(8)     Labor rights.

Pia does not explain them either. From the downloadable pdf for Performance Indicators for Sustainable Rice Production, I get the following indicators:

(1)     Profitability: net income from rice
(2)     Labor productivity
(3)     Productivity: grain yield
(4)     Food safety
(5)     Total water productivity
(6)     Nutrient use efficiency
(7)     Pesticide-use efficiency
(8)     Greenhouse gas emissions

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