Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘Grey-To-Green Revolution. 2 Launchings, 2 Models, 2 Tactics’

Outside, the scenery was drab; inside, the scene was subdued. Nothing unexpected was expected in the old auditorium. Even humor seemed out of place.

***

Early this week, some 250 delegates from the countryside and the cities were in attendance that first day of a national conference set March 12-14 in the City of Batac in northern Philippines, and the first thing MMSU Professor and Emcee Josie Domingo said was, ‘Ladies & gentlemen, we’re making history!’ Far at the back of the PhilRice-NTA auditorium, I heard her loud and clear. I also noticed nobody did clap. I didn’t. It seemed a hyperbole worth not a laugh but a cold shoulder.

***

I said nobody noticed. We were about to launch the Grey-to-Green (G2G) Revolution in the country and nobody was excited. I wasn’t. It must be that history is in the head, not in the eyes. History is not in the sight but in the foresight, more in the hindsight. You don’t see history – you view history. You don’t take a photograph of history with a flash bulb but with a flash of insight. Later, not sooner.

***

Or perhaps the delegates were (I know I was) thinking about the 15^th of March, the day after the conference, the ides of March, the day Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated, ‘a day of infamy’ (Jennifer Vernon, 2004, nationalgeographic.com). Would the first days of the launching prove to be in fact the last days of the National Sweet Sorghum Program of the Philippines, as in the case of the imperious Caesar who was slain by those who called themselves ‘the liberators’? Perhaps, sweet dreams must die.

***

Today, March 15, the ides of March, as I begin to write this, I realize we were making history, even if nobody else noticed. We were in fact launching a Revolution, even if nobody called it that – and with a crop hardly anyone talked about in the Philippines until last year. And the place where the unofficial declaration of the Revolution was made was as unpromising as can be: It is the auditorium of the complex that houses one of the stations of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) as well as accommodates the National Tobacco Administration (NTA), and it is located within the campus of the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU). When you declare a sweet sorghum revolt in the land of rice and tobacco, what do you expect? I can imagine blank stares and empty thoughts.

***

Most of the delegates had been to conferences before. Officially titled ‘First National Sweet Sorghum RD&E Review and Planning Conference’ – where R is research, D is development and E is extension – the Batac conference was sponsored by the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR), Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (DoST-PCARRD), International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and MMSU. That was a motley group that seemed unlikely to agree on one agenda, much less a modern-day Revolution.

***

ICRISAT scientist Belum Reddy came for ICRISAT Director General William Dar. CHEd Executive Director William Medrano was in attendance. And so were Executive Director Pat Faylon and Crops Director Joy Eusebio, both of PCARRD. MMSU President Miriam Pascua was there. Provincial Agriculturist Norma Lagmay came for Ilocos Norte Governor Michael Keon. As National Team Leader for Sweet Sorghum as well as MMSU VP for Planning & External Linkages, Heraldo Layaoen was in effect directing the whole show. DA-BAR Assistant Director Teodoro Solsoloy attended for Director Nicomedes Eleazar. DA-BAR Consultant Santiago Obien came, being the brains behind the conference. I came with the brains.

***

Have you ever heard of a revolt launched with so many distinguished individuals armed only with seeds of an undistinguished crop foreign to a country? Sweet sorghum was going to change the lives not only of the Ilocanos in the Ilocos Region but other Filipinos in the quiet countryside as well as the noisy cities of the Philippines. The City of Batac was silently challenging Imperial Manila, raucous as ever, to behave intelligently. Cities now in competition, the crop of Manila were sour grapes; the crop of Batac was sweet sorghum.

***

I heard the Father of ICRISAT’s sweet sorghum Belum Reddy call it the ‘Wonder Crop.’ ICRISAT Director General William Dar already calls it a ‘Smart Crop.’ I shall now call it the ‘Sweetheart Crop.’ We are referring to the same species: sweet sorghum. A witness to history made this week, I assure you Miracle Rice was never as good as this.

***

Yes, Miracle Rice happened in the Philippines, in the municipality of Los Baños, Laguna. And yes, the Sweetheart Crop happened in the Philippines, in the City of Batac, Ilocos Norte, at the campus of the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU). Miracle Rice gave birth to the Green Revolution in Asia; it was wrought by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The Sweetheart Crop is giving rise to the Grey-to-Green Revolution declared by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). The Green Revolution happened in the time of President Ferdinand E Marcos, the Grey-to-Green Revolution is happening in his birthplace. Another heroism, another time.

***

At the city plaza is a huge sign that says, ‘Batac, Home of Great Leaders.’ A leader is an initiator, a guide, an inspirer, a commander all rolled into one. Ferdinand Marcos was one; I call him the Benevolent Dictator. During his presidency, inside what he called The New Revolution: Democracy, science flowered in the Philippines. I know that personally: I worked as the Chief Information Officer of the Forest Research Institute, which he created by presidential fiat; he created many others, including the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) and of course the MMSU, which he named after his father. Gregorio Aglipay was another great Bataqueño; he was a Catholic priest who joined the revolutionary movement called the Katipunan (Society) against the Spanish colonizers. Katipunan General Artemio Ricarte was yet another; when everybody had been stilled or stopped, he never quit, fighting the American invaders until he was captured. And in contemporary times, Santiago Obien built the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) from scratch paper in the 1980s to a world-class institution in the 1990s that Asian governments have come to respect and IRRI has come to recognize as a rice force by itself. In achieving such a feat, Obien almost single-handedly elevated rice science management in the Philippines. Batac should be prouder still.

***

If you visit the Ilocos Region in March, you will note that almost all of it is dry, drab, grey. The soils are poor in health and starved of moisture. They have been in such a poor state for ages. They are perfect for what I now refer to as the official launching of the Grey-to-Green (G2G) Revolution in the Philippines. Sweet sorghum is perfect if you want to go from grey to green because this crop has multiple uses (see my ‘The Smart Revolution,’ frankahilario.com) and it thrives even on impoverished soil, which makes it indispensable in greening the earth to mitigate climate change. With sweet sorghum, you grow your crop, you replenish the earth.

***

In fact, the G2G Revolution was born and raised in Patancheru, India, within the campus of ICRISAT, with William Dar as Captain of Team ICRISAT (see also my ‘Al Gore Of Science, frankahilario.com). Sweet sorghum coming to the Philippines is like William Dar coming home to Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur. In 2000, Dar became the first Filipino (and the first and only Asian) to be the leader of ICRISAT, one of 15 centers for agricultural research that the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) advocates for and administers. Belum Reddy is the Principal Scientist on Sorghum Breeding of ICRISAT; with the innovative leadership of William Dar, Team ICRISAT has successfully diffused the technology to a private investor so that now thousands of Indian farmers are growing sweet sorghum canes for Rusni Distillery (see my ‘To Harvest The Sun,’ frankahilario.com), and everyone is harvesting from inspired inputs and learned labors. Science with a human face.

***

The distillery model was the one launched at the campus of MMSU with Undersecretary Mariz Agbon representing Secretary Arthur Yap. This model could be like the one Rusni Distillery has put up in India in collaboration with Team ICRISAT. The crusher will be producing ethanol in large scale. The theme adopted for the Batac conference emphasized the big-scale model: ‘Synergizing linkages for a commercially viable and sustainable bioethanol industry in the Philippines.’ Big is beautiful.

***

The village model was the one launched at the village of Bungon within the city limits of Batac. Farmers own the crusher, and they would be turning the sweet sorghum juice not into ethanol but into jaggery for sale as well as for products that the markets of food, feed, forage, fuel and fertilizer would demand in small to medium scale. The theme adopted neither mentions nor implies village-scale sweet sorghum-based income generators, but these did come up during the conference anyway, as they should. This crop is for both gas and cash. Sweet sorghum is for the capitalist with his ethanol distillery as well as for the small farmers with their village-level multiple products. Small is beautiful.

***

The distillery model makes sweet sorghum a capitalist crop, the capitalist with his big dreams. The village model makes sweet sorghum a farmer’s crop, the farmer with sweet dreams.

***

In June last year, I called sweet sorghum ‘a rich man’s choice of a poor man’s crop’ (‘ICRISAT & The Profits Of Boom,’ frankahilario.com). Along the same lines, now I’m thinking of these creative areas as my reason for calling sweet sorghum a Sweetheart Crop for the big businessman as well as the small farmer:

(1) distillery for bioethanol and by-products of processing
(2) jaggery for sweet products
(3) grains for feeds, forage or foods
(4) bagasse for fuel or organic fertilizer.

***

On the second day, participants were divided into separate workshop sessions. I joined the Information, Education & Communication (IEC) group; with my friend Rudy Fernandez, we had 2 writers. Josie, yesterday’s announcer of the Revolution, was with us. With her firm but gentle guidance, we agreed that IEC was a small part of a bigger thing we could conveniently call Social Mobilization, which was composed of 5 parts: Advocacy, Networking, Community Organizing, Capability Building, with IEC in the middle connecting people (with apologies to Nokia), tying up everything. That to me was a minor achievement. We of the IEC did not look up to ourselves, did not assume that we were entitled to a separate agenda.

***

It was Josie Domingo who gave our session’s report, as our Chair Marlowe Aquino had left for abroad. She was too serious for me. If I had made the report, because we would report last, I would have joked:

I admire all of the previous groups’ reports. They were all excellent. But, you know, as good as you are, we IEC people will cover all of you. (Pause.) We will all be on top of all of you! I hope you’ll like it.

***

Thinking along these lines, I can see in my mind’s eye that in the global challenge called climate change, rising above all will be sweet sorghum, the champion.