AVANT GARDENER A couple of weeks ago, social and media intelligence company Meltwater and creative agency We Are Social released country specific reports in Digital 2024, their annual report on social media and digital trends. According to the email I received, the Philippines ranked number...
AVANT GARDENER I’m currently taking my PhD in Communications, and I want to center it on agriculture. This has led me to reading academic papers about the role of agriculture media in helping the agriculture industry. One of them is “The Role of Agricultural Journalism in Building the Rural...
AVANT GARDENER Knowledge management is extremely important, especially in industries that rely on information to move forward, yet have a personnel base that are most of the time loath to adapt new techniques. A large number of Filipino farmers fall into this category, with many adopting a...
AVANT GARDENER Spend enough time around people and one begins to hear stories about the circles they run in. This can be neither good nor bad, especially when treated as information that can help one make sense of why things are the way they are. I heard a story recently that helped me...
AVANT GARDENER Today the Manila Bulletin celebrates its 124th anniversary. That’s 124 years of reporting on news and current events. 124 years of informing, educating, and entertaining its readers while being at the forefront of history and relaying it to the Filipino people. And within those 124...
AVANT GARDENER I’m very honored and grateful to have worked in Manila Bulletin’s Agriculture section in various capacities, first as editor-in-chief of Agriculture Online, then following in Zac Sarian’s footsteps as Manila Bulletin’s Agriculture section editor and later, editor-in-chief of...
AVANT GARDENER The sad thing about our agriculture industry is that it moves so slowly that discussions about old problems and concerns are still relevant months later. For example, I attended a Pandesal Forum titled “Agrikultura sa Kalunsuran para sa Masaganang Kinabukasan!” (Urban Farming for...
AVANT GARDENER I know I’m late to the party, but I finally had time to catch up on my TV shows during the last holiday break, and I’ve finally seen Project 8’s Replacing Chef Chico, which stars Sam Milby as the titular Chef Chico, Alessandra de Rossi as his sous chef Ella, and Piolo Pascual...
AVANT GARDENER Every new year brings with it the hope of a new start, a better future. It is in this spirit that I present my very general hopes for the agriculture industry this 2024: Fair profit for agriculture workers. Agriculture workers remain the poorest of the poor in the Philippines. In...
AVANT GARDENER The Design Center of the Philippines is hosting an exhibit called “50 Years of Philippine Design and Beyond” in the National Museum of Fine Arts. As its name says, it presents some of the country’s top designs from different fields. One of them is Theo+Philo Artisan chocolates,...
AVANT GARDENER Once in a while, there will be a story about farmers dumping their produce on the side of the road, followed by well-meaning but ultimately ignorant and self-righteous consumers talking about how unresourceful these farmers are when they could be making pomodoro (not even kamatis or...
AVANT GARDENER A major problem in the Philippine agriculture industry is the lack of farmers’ direct access to the buyer. Another major problem is a lack of professionalization among many small farmers, which leads to mistrust among institutional buyers who require a set quota and quality of...
