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MANILA:  Inanglupa  translates literally as  Motherland , the preferred translation, but which I prefer to translate as  Mother Earth , because the name refers first of all to the soil. Inanglupa, the Philippine movement founded last year by former Director General of ICRISAT William Dar, has been inspired by Bhoochetana, the highly successful joint project of the State of Karnataka in India and ICRISAT under William Dar, and about which I have written 22 long essays, the first one being "The Bhoochetana Revolution. Political will applied with science" (04 July 2012,  A Magazine Called Love,  blogspot.com ). In rejuvenating their soils by Bhoochetana, Indian farmers earned  additional  incomes of a minimum Rs4,470/ha for sunflower to a maximum Rs23,090/ha for peanut that year. They were just starting. Bhoochetana  means  revival of the soil;  this was one of the things that ICRISAT taught the farmers of Karnataka to do: Find out wha...

MANILA:  Saturday, 08 August 2015: I created the blog  The Coop Crusader  today ( blogspot.com ); I have since collected my earlier essays on the subject & related ones, 1 or 2 of them dating back to the year 2007, and will continue to write on it, because now I as writer and worker am firmly convinced that the multipurpose cooperative is the undiscovered modern-day  Redeemer  or  Savior  of the poor. Here are definitions of those concepts from the  American Heritage Dictionary : Redeem:  restore the honor, worth or reputation of . Save:  set free from consequences of sin; rescue from harm, danger or loss. So, which one should I choose as the correct role of a coop with respect to the members and their poverty? I choose both.  Redeemer  because the coop could restore the worth of a poor member as a dignified human being.  Savior  because the coop could set the members free from their debts and exploitative relatio...

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 tho...

MANILA:  Columnist Tony Katigbak of the  Philippine Star  writes glowingly of Col Andres Roxas Soriano Sr, whom he describes as "one of our country's earliest visionary businessmen who rose from the ashes of World War II to become one of the Philippines' most prominent businessmen, capitalists and entrepreneur philanthropists" (08 July 2015,  philstar.com ). His column is entitled "Profit with honor" and says that the phrase "is one of the most memorable and admirable mantras" he remembers of that corporate soul. He goes on to say that Soriano's sons Andres Jr and Jose "were able to steer his companies to ever greater heights and profitability" and that they also established the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), "which has become a worldwide business organization." Katigbak says "Don Andres' legacy was that he not only built businesses to amass his own fortune, but also sought to provide jobs and oppor...

MANILA: Why study roots? Because the invisible half of the plant is as important as the visible part. Because "physiologically vigorous root systems are as essential as vigorous shoots for successful plant growth," PJ Kramer says, "because root and shoot growth are so interdependent that one cannot succeed without the other" ( dspace.udel.edu ). Because, DB Kell says, deeper roots give "much greater steady-state trapping of carbon, and also of nutrients and water, leading to improved drought and flooding tolerance, greater biomass yields, and better soil structure and steady-state carbon sequestration" (2011, nipccreport.org ). More biomass formed, more nutrients and water trapped, more tolerance to drought and flooding, higher yields, and better soils. Today I chanced upon Neil Palmer's 1.5-year old report of a high anticipation for a successful genetic modification of IRRI's rice variety IR64 that will produce deep roots and establish itself wel...