Post 10 of 20: Agroforest Development and Operations Procedures

 ONE TIME ACTION (OTA) 'FORMULAS'

    The following are action programs that need to be performed once by Phil. mega co-ops (MCs).  However, repeats of the 'formulas' may be made upon MC expansion to ASEAN & tropical 3rd World countries.

    OTA Formula 1: Agroforest Development and Operations Target: (after charter change) Set up multi-crop, export-oriented, high-profit MC agroforest joint ventures (JVs) as follows:

    Standard MC Movt. agroforest model: [5k up employees & mgrs led by retired doctors & specialists from colleges of Agriculture and Sciences & State Agri-related agencies] + retired top officers of State & private corps] + [30-50 public and private corps] together invest [P1 billion in a mega co-op] that sets up [a 2k+ hectares agroforest] thru [25-year renewable Forest Management Agreement with the Dept. of Environment & Natural Resources] thus enabling the MC to conduct [patches-type multi-crop-multi-species reforestation] comprising [hardwoods, softwoods, fibers, fruit trees, palms, black pepper, bamboo, rattan, rubber, forage trees, oil palm, cacao, coffee, etc.] as [10 to 30-hectare forest patches] that surround (checker style) [ground crop farms] which produce [pineapple, yacon, upland rice, corn, sweet sorghum, potatoes, ground forages, peanuts, spices, vegetables, tropical fruits, medicinal plants, etc.] while areas under forest canopies are provided with [fenced feedlots and sheds] for grow-out, breeding  and processing of [cattle, goats, sheep, ponies, range chicken, turkey, ostrich, swine, and ducks] in joint venture with [Aus/NZ, Jpn, Mid East, EU, US ranchers] the foreign partners providing [100% project cost in livestock & ranch equipment] while the MC provides for [State permits & protection, feeds, power, water, care, breeding, health care, mgt.] at [50% offspring-sharing for livestock] the MC concurrently engaged in [JVs with food companies in Jpn, Twn, SoKor, Twn, EU, etc.] for [contract farming & factory processing of agroforest products] @ [100% project cost financed by foreign partners] while the MC provides [land, State permits & protection, labor, mgt, power, water, shared technologies] for [60% of net profit] towards export of [processed food factory, drug co. & restaurant chain ingredients, canned & processed meats & veggies, nutraceutical preventives versus diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancers and cell oxidation (ageing)] such as [pineapple-yacon juice, stevia, noni, ginseng, dark berry juices and wines, moringa, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger, psyllium, kimchi, etc.] as well as [peanuts, potato crisps, fruit preserves, jellies and jams,  chocolates, veggies, mushrooms, honey, syrups, fruit cocktails, etc.] while their JV meat & dairy factories produce [frozen meat cuts, flavored barbecues, smoked duck, hams, bacon, shawarma cuts, sausages, yoghurt, powdered milk, cheeses, etc.] the agroforest's biofuels division partnering with [scores of other MCs & foreign techno & equipt supplier cos.] to set up [ethanol distilleries fed by sweet sorghum] + [ethanol-fueled turbine power plants] + [methane biogas power generators] the biofuels facilities set up as 50-50% JVs with [Brazilian, Indian, EU, SoKor, Jpn, US cos.] and financed at 60-75% project cost by [trillion-$ UN Environment Program & other World Green Funds] under [Phil. govt guaranty] the combined operations to be cloned by [500k+ local MCs expanding ASEAN-wide] thru [inter-co-op JVs] that will create [endless jobs for 500M ASEAN bottom poor] + [endless quadrillions in wealth flowing towards involved ASEAN investing masses & companies] + [endless billions in interest income for involved Green Funds] + [trillion $ yearly tax proceeds and other income for ASEAN governments] + [endless billion-ton level sequestration of atmospheric CO2 & methane versus global warming]

    Q1: What's a Forest Management Agreement?  A1: It's a JV contract between a people's organization and the Phil. Dept. of Environment & Natural Resources whereby the State's mostly denuded 'forest' lands (some 15M hectares) are to be  reforested by the authorized organization under 25-year land use rights renewable another 25 years.  Ten percent of area may be converted into farms, ranches and feedlots for 'daily income' since it takes unproductive years to grow a forest.  From 1980s onwards, some 5,000 people's organizations have started such projects at 0.5k to 10k hectares each.  Unfortunately, almost all of them failed due to lack of capital, unprofessional management, far-away markets, financing constraints, low credit worthiness and other reasons.  Our MC agroforest projects at 2k-up hectares each are designed to address such weaknesses.  MCs managed by retired top officers, engineers, scientists & technologists of Phil. agribusiness colleges & related State agencies + retired officers of top private agri products processing cos. + local & foreign JV experts + billion-dollar financing + commercial scale production contracting + export sales worldwide should be principal anti-failure remedies for agroforest-based MC corporate groups.

    Q2: Why checkered patches-type reforestation?  A2: The Phils. suffers some 20 typhoons yearly, destroying huge patches of old & reforested forest lands.  Forest fires, nighttime tree cutting, and slash & burn farming also destroy thousands of hectares (almost half) of State-reforested and old-growth forests each year.  Checkered patches-style reforestation should address both issues.  10-30 hectares as patches of hardwoods, softwoods, fruit and palm trees, rattan and bamboo provide large open spaces (5-10 hectares) surrounded by said patches for cultivation of ground crops such as potatoes, sorghum, spices, upland rice, corn, pineapple, peanuts, etc.  The forest patches edged by bamboo groves serve as strong windbreaks that protect the ground crops.  The ground-crop farms become firebreaks and allow for firefighting facilities.  The forest canopies further protect feedlot type ranches (fences, sheds and paddocks) for cattle, buffalo, goats, sheep, swine, ducks, turkey, ostrich, ponies, antelope and free-range poultry against super typhoons, droughts and other ill effects of global warming.  Additionally, composting and biogas operations get facilitated by nearby sources of farm harvest wastes and livestock droppings.  The multi-crop design further ensures that sufficient well-paid agroforest personnel are always working or guarding the forests and farms (mostly as village and tribal resident families) on 24/7 basis.  Guarding is critical as preventive against fires, unauthorized tree cutters, slash-and-burn farmers, careless campers and tourists, hooligans, hunters, armed bands of bogus rebels, bandits, politicians' private armies, land-grabbing politicians, etc. Signaling arrangements with local military and police detachments should discourage armed illegal bands from occupying or passing-by parts of the site.  All ground-crop and feedlot activities as well as factory processing should start as almost simultaneous contract growing and processing JVs (arranged at pre-operations stage) between the MC and corporate partners from Jpn, Twn, SoKor, Sing, Mid East, EU, etc.  The entire scheme implemented nationwide should create permanent agroforests that yield enormous profits while endlessly 'inhaling' billions of tons of atmospheric CO2 & methane (thru greenery & biogas plants) versus global warming. MC agroforests nationwide should end the current sorry state of Phil. reforestation whereby all the above-mentioned forest-destroying factors remain, maintaining Philippine uplands on summer-brown color during the six-month dry season, and speckled with landslides and lowland flood-creating, topsoil-stripping streams during the rainy season.  What's more, entire villages of bottom-poor slash-and-burn farming families will become regular, well-paid employees of the agroforests' multi-crop operations and processing factories.  As new employees, they may obtain free MC capital stock shares thru the PITCOS law, afford education beyond primary and elementary level, and learn more advanced skills for job promotion & group entrepreneurship that will bring them to middle class status on permanent basis.  For their part, all involved MC and JV shareholders (employee masses and corporations) should earn dividend income & stock price rises in quadrillions on perpetual basis.  

Q3: How should the MC involve tribal villagers and farmers with titled lands in agroforest production?  A3: Scores of tribes have acquired ancestral titles to large swaths of uplands (accessible after hours of hiking from town sites) but remain at bottom poor level, since almost all of them are unschooled or illiterate.  Moreover, they are too shy & unskilled to work as employees, & their culture shuns employment by people who treat them as 'bottom inferiors'. They prefer to work together in tiny rain-fed farms that yield just one crop yearly, sharing whatever small profits they get among all members.  For these reasons, the MC has to offer them contract production terms as follows: (a) the MC advances food (rice, canned goods, powdered milk, noodles, etc. & cash allowance each week, since tribal families have barely enough to eat.  Regular food deliveries will motivate them to work on 'commercial' basis.  (b) the MC builds clusters of work area huts along water sources (upland streams and rivers) and sets up water cisterns with irrigation pipes and taps to transform hundred-hectare idle lands into multi-crop farms; (c) the MC provides tribal adults with farm tools (manual and motorized hole diggers for planting trees and crops to ensure no topsoil erosion + picks, shovels, trolleys with jerry cans and portable pipe systems for watering, etc.) (d) the MC provides tissue culture-produced plantlets to the tribe based largely on agroforest JV  factories' needs, and teaches and supervises tribal workers thru weekly technicians' visits.  Target crops are the same as what MC JV factories require, such as multi-species trees & vines, coffee, cacao, black pepper, fruit trees, palm oil, rattan, ginseng, aromatic trees & vines, hardwoods and softwoods, honey, orchids, etc.  Upland rice, corn, sweet sorghum (for the MC's ethanol distillery), potatoes. ginger, stevia, garlic, peanuts, kimchi ingredients and other short-season crops will provide income while the trees grow. Agroforest managers should be expected to make sure buying rates for crop harvests are based on international prices, so the tribes will earn enormous income that will enable them to afford appropriate distance study schooling to College level.  The PITCOS law will also enable tribe members to acquire shares in MCs, adding profit dividends & capital stock value rises to their farming incomes.   The entire scheme should enable the tribe to gradually rise to the middle classes together, exactly as their culture of sharing requires.  As to bottom poor upland farmers who own small patches of untitled land, they can similarly engage in production contracting while their grown-up family members earn good income in salaries and dividends as agroforest employees.  Everyone necessarily wins thru MC Movement schemes!

    Q4: Why should a MC Movt style agroforest development scheme ideally be implemented only after constitutional change?  A4: If the MC Movt attempts to set up such scheme under present political systems without sufficient million-peso 'oiling budgets' for State bureaucracies, it will have to hurdle enormous difficulties.  Getting foreign partners will also be a major MC problem, since the decades-old Phil. govt's reputation as among the most corrupt worldwide will keep on scaring foreign investors away.  Additionally, MCs will face 'mountain-size hurdles' in acquiring land use rights as politician-landlords who get acquainted with profitable MC agribusiness schemes will suddenly lay claim to large expanses of land using corrupt courts & Lands authorities to support their 'suddenly legal' claims.  The consequent court cases will as usual last over decades, to be won based on 'highest bidder', both at great loss to the embattled MCs.  Unfortunately, said MCs have to face scores more roadblocks versus powerful politicians & their networks of State allies all intent on mining as much as they can out of all large-scale businesses. To address all such issues, the MC Movt has no choice but to engineer an appropriate Charter Change that will create new laws & programs that favor the entire citizenry, not just old elites as usual.

    Read next post that describes an effective way to greatly reduce Phil. consumer goods prices: set up ultra low-priced, 24/7, trillion-watt green power plants nationwide.  Since power is a basic cost for all industries, low-priced power will bring down general prices. (For Android cellphones, swipe screen up & down, tap arrow at left of title, and tap Post 11: Bring Down Consumer Prices Thru Clean Power!)

    For Question & Answer procedure, tap Post 19: Time to Act! Help Promote Our Mega Co-op Movement!  For comments: email fermin4megacoops@gmail.com