AVANT GARDENER

Happy July! It’s the middle of the year already, even though it feels like 2023 has just begun. I hope you’ll take this opportunity to pick up a copy of the July issue of Agriculture magazine. We’ve got an exciting lineup, not to mention several tweaks in the cover and layout. The cover features Pampanga-based Michael Castro of Mr. Chix Farm, a fresh graduate who started farming during the pandemic and now successfully raises free range chickens as well as heritage breeds. We also welcome the resumption of Currents, Dr. Rafael Guerrero III’s long-running aquaculture column. Dr. Guerrero is an academician of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) Philippines and is a focal person for fisheries of the NAST. His column has been a main-stay in the magazine for decades, and we’re very excited to have him back. This month’s column talks about commercially caught freshwater fish in the Philippines. Other articles include news on the renaming of Aerides lawrenceae, a rare species of albino orchid, the difference between ipil and ipil-ipil (Did you know they were different?), and the difference between apiculture and meliponiculture. As July heralds the start of the rainy season, we have tips on protecting crops from heavy rains and strong winds, as well as a piece on why goats should not be grazed during wet weather and what to do instead. There are also articles on the benefits of subjecting pili plants to stress, as well as the commercial opportunities in using dayami to produce clean fuel. Also this month, public school teacher and Agriculture magazine reader Teofilo S. Tabuan Jr. tells us about his fun, relaxing, and profitable side hustle as a lettuce farmer. Agriculture continues to be an underserved yet highly important part of the Philippine economy in terms of revenue and food sustainability (or promise thereof). Every year sees more and more farmers discourage their children from going into the same industry. At the same time, we see optimistic, highly motivated, strategic individuals enter the industry knowing full well how volatile it can be yet using their backgrounds in seemingly unrelated industries to succeed. Many agriculture practitioners know that industries such as business, entrepreneurship, and marketing aren’t unrelated, but are actually important to success in the industry, yet this is something that still needs to become common knowledge. Aside from an interest in farming or fishing, one must also have a strategic mind, a strong stomach, and a source of capital (even starting with a thousand pesos is still capital). Agriculture magazine has been guiding farmers by featuring tips, trends, and inspiring farms and farmers for over two decades. We believe that farming can be a profitable venture as long as it is treated like a business. Let us remove from our consciousness the image of the farmer as someone who tills the land out of passion, without need for compensation. This kind of thinking is reductive and harmful, belittling the efforts of agricultural workers and driving them out of the industry. Instead, let us work towards a just and transparent food and agricultural system where practitioners are paid living wages, not just enough to get by, but enough for a comfortable way of life for themselves and their loved ones. Happy farmers and fishers mean a thriving agriculture industry, and this can only mean well for the rest of the country. I’ve digressed from the main point of this column, which is to encourage you to pick up a copy of Agriculture magazine, but the message still stands: we must support and protect our agriculture workers, and the best way to do that is to show them that their efforts can and do bear fruit.