Towards a multi-tasking agriculture department

ACORPORATE culture starts with a mindset or a worldview that would guide the corporate officers and staff about how it should run the organization and what its visions and missions should be.

But even with a clear set of visions and missions, a corporate organization would be lost in its overall purpose if it does not adjust to the changes in world views and market demands.

It appears that many of the people who are running t he Department of Agriculture ( DA) now are mostly focused on growing food items and on farm operations and hardly anything else, without realizing perhaps that they should also pay attention to the marketing of farm produce, the development of sales strategies, the strengthening of logistics and the completion of value chains and supply chains.

Perhaps the root of the problems could be traced to the schools of agriculture wherein the curriculum is focused mainly on the growing of crops and not the selling of these crops, along with the other functions in between growing and selling, such as harvesting, drying, processing, packing, storing and delivering.

Unless t he curriculum i s changed, we will always end up with graduates whose mindsets are compartmentalized. The officers of our agriculture department should set long term targets not only for self-sufficiency or food security, but for food dominance in several food export categories. Not just import reduction, but export leadership.

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MEAT CONSUMPTION AFFECTS CLIMATE CHANGE

Everything that we do now, affects climate change, including eating our food, riding a car or taking a shower. Each one of us is just one person in a planet that is populated by billions of people, but the choices that we make affect everyone in the planet, including our own families, whether we like it or not.

But can you believe that choosing between eating beef and eating chevon ( goat meat) can actually impact on climate change?

In an ideal world, climate change could slow down if only everyone would stop eating beef and start eating chicken or fish instead. But since not everyone can do that, we should just expand our choices.

In comparison, goats produce slightly more methane than cows, but on the other hand, goats hugely produce less CO2 than cows. Although that would seem like a close tie, goats would come out better in the green scale, because they require less water and less grazing land, meaning less trees to cut in the Amazon or elsewhere.

But then again, methane has good uses too, and one way to put it to good use is to convert it to biogas. I know of a big corporate farm that is already making extra money by earning carbon credits simply by using animal waste to power their electricity needs. The more animal waste means more free electric power.

In the overall analysis, I would say that chevon is a better choice than beef, because lower income farmers can raise goats easier./