Alternative citizenship through farming

I recently met up with my friend Clarita Lapuz of Mama Sita fame. I knew her from school days and again when I lived abroad and she visited to talk on Filipino food and demonstrate recipes using her different sauces and mixes. 

I looked askance at her and her advocacy as commercial, an advertisement for her company’s products when she organized food festivals among Filipino communities abroad. She held one at the Philippine Embassy in Brussels when my late husband, Alberto A. Pedrosa was ambassador.

That was the last I saw of her until a few days ago when I wanted her advice on planting peppers. I had been told that her husband Bart, an authority on development agriculture, was part of a group in Los Banos that was deep into research to find out the best varieties of plants to grow in the Philippines. They experimented with plants both from here and abroad to develop the best varieties with a mind on viability and cost. 

I attended the meeting at the Management Association of the Philippines sponsored by the Mama Sita Foundation. I was hooked. Here was a group doing things that receive little attention. There was so much more to know about what they do that can help and address the problem of poverty than listening to politicians. Moreover, they were not just talking — they were doing it.

For lunch they served chicken pastel with kamote and dessert was kamote cheesecake. Umm. (The humble kamote, by the way, is more nutritious than potatoes!)

I recently tried again to get in touch with her but was told she was abroad promoting kamote and will see me when she comes back in November and would I please come to their kamote festival?

Clarita taught me a lesson I wish to pass on to this column’s readers. We are focused on alternative governments but she taught me that there was the equally important alternative citizenship that she practices promoting food to feed our hungry poor.

* * *

Her devotion to farming and food should be supported and helped if we are serious about solving or at least alleviating poverty in our country. Indeed all the talk on strong economic growth, increased foreign reserves, a strong peso and investors from abroad must be complemented by what Clarita and her husband’s group in Los Banos — The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) do. It is a private-public partnership we seldom hear about even if we were daily television watchers or newspaper readers.

An unsolicited advice to the new President: we should spend more on food production because its effects are more real than GDPs. Here is an area for reform that he could put his teeth in. For a credible reform program he has to look beyond figures of economic ratings and do whatever it takes to bring economic equality. He must think outside the box and pay attention to the work of Clarita and Co.

* * *

Gabby Lopez, a former colleague at the Cultural Center and now with the Historical Commission, sent me an article from the Economist about agricultural success in another country. Many may not agree with the way it has achieved success but it is worthwhile reading how they did it.

“The country was Brazil. In the four decades since, it has become the first tropical agricultural giant and the first to challenge the dominance of the “big five” food exporters (America, Canada, Australia, Argentina and the European Union).

“Brazil’s farms are sustainable, too, thanks to abundant land and water. But they are many times the size even of American ones. Farmers buy inputs and sell crops on a scale that makes sense only if there are world markets for them. And they depend critically on new technology.

“Still, the basic ingredients of Brazil’s success — agricultural research, capital-intensive large farms, openness to trade and to new farming techniques — should work elsewhere.

“It also shows that change will not come about by itself. Four decades ago, the country faced a farm crisis and responded with decisive boldness. The world is facing a slow-motion food crisis now. It should learn from Brazil.”

* * *

But we also have lessons to impart to the world. Here is a story from the blog “Eating Asia” which should be read by more people. I have excerpted this to fit my space but read it in full from the blog.

“Long before Alice Waters introduced the concept of students growing their own food in Berkeley (<http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/about-us>) kids were putting hoe to soil at schools in the Philippines.

“School farms in the island nation go back at least to World War II. Many were, and still are, born of necessity. Others are started not only to feed kids but to teach them life skills and engender a respect for farming.

“Didn’t know about this? I’m not surprised. We wouldn’t know about the Philippines’ own ‘edible schoolyards’ either had we not stumbled upon the farm at Victoriano de Castro Elementary School in Santa Rita, Pampanga province while on assignment there in December 2007 for Saveur magazine (<http://saveur.com/>).

“V. de Costa’s mini-farm occupies its entire courtyard. What a sight! And certainly not one we’re familiar with from the United States.

“At the time of our visit the school’s farming program had already been in existence almost 20 years.

Even though Pampanga is a largely agricultural province (rice and sugar are the main cash crops) ‘many of our children here at the school do not come from farming families,’ Ms. Yaya told me. ‘But we want to be sure that they learn to respect the land and the farmers who work so hard to grow our food.’

“The students do all the work on the farm, and take fresh produce home to their families as a reward

“The kids’ reward for all this hard work? A pleasant break from sedentary book work in the form of time spent outdoors engaged in physical activity. There is pride in literally seeing seeds that they’ve sown bear fruit and the freshest possible produce to take home to their families.”

We should have more of Victoriano de Castro schools. Indeed, every school, public or private should teach about farming. (<http://eatingasia.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c509553ef013486b79f4e970c-pi>)