Flashback to 70s/80s, early in my career, I realized that to be a good agriculturist I should also be forester and a rural sociologist as well. I grew up in the mountainous Central Visayas...
Farm, Forest, and Food
Good agriculture produces the good food, right? But don’t we need the forest too?. The stories here represent the evolution of our work in upland agriculture landscapes and community based forest care systems in Asia … and how we could benefit if we treat them as one system. Valuable references by innovators and thought leaders are also included
We studied the work of India, on the ecology and biology of agriculture. We also learned about large landscape approaches of China to land rehabilitation. In the US east coast, we captured the...
I was not really keen then of doing a college technical thesis or the idea of a PhD. But the science world (i.e. The World Agroforestry Center or ICRAF) beckoned in CY 2000. There was a great need...
I love the gentle rural communities of Cambodia and Laos who hug the mighty Mekong River. I was happy to help on technical land issues. But the “land economics “angle (land access) always haunt the...
Key Features
Secretary of Agriculture, Niue
Chapel in Niue with Filipino coral choir
We were recently involved (with IFAD and SEARCA) to strengthen agricultural extension systems of Pacific nations
Ideas that inspired us On farm adaption must be complemented by landscape level adaptation. Farmers lives are too intertwined with forests and rivers in the community. Grassroots oriented field...
Above is part of a mountain in Malaybalay, Bukidnon Mindanao, in 2018. Forty years earlier… In 1978, parts of Cebu landscapes already looked like the above 2018 picture in Malaybalay (treeless...