Agro forestry Demo Institute in the Philippines for Universal Use

1      An Impossibility made Possible, actually Feasible

Since the 1980’s development banks took on the task of funding reforestation projects.  In comparison commercialized deforestation existed for more than a century and those doing it reaped large financial incomes by selling the logs, mostly wholesale and in bulk.  This practice occurred throughout the tropical world.  Various governments, including the Philippines, have set ambitious goals to reforest areas of deforestation.  The projects of the 1980’s did not prove successful or of any serious consequence.  The most current projects are far behind their goals, which even if met, would not measure up to appreciable progress against the former deforestation.  Government at the lowest level, barangay (village), in cooperation with private endeavors can teach, through demonstration, farmers how they can make money from living trees that they planted.  This behavior is contagious and it is actually feasible to expect it to spread from barangay to barangay encompassing all 42,000 barangay in the Philippines within fewer than two decades.  

1.1    The Impossible - Reforestation in the hands of Government

An inherent characteristic of development banks and agencies is one of the bureaucrats being on their career path.  It intertwines with sister agencies allowing them upward mobility each time they resign from one agency in order to hire on with the other, and in a couple more years in occurs again, often times the bureaucrat returns to the original agency however at a much more senior position.  Why is this critical to reforestation, a process that takes more years than are available to the same project manager who commenced the project; because the bureaucrat is seldom held accountable for long-term results, only the short-term that can be measured during one’s short tenure?  An example is the comparison of time involved with the planting of a seedling and the evaluation of the growth of the resultant tree.  Accountability often occurs for evaluating the success of planting a forest, however seldom occurs for evaluating the decades-long period required for evaluating the actual survival and growth of the same forest.  Most often the seedlings are counted fairly soon after their planting but seldom are they counted a decade later when they should be trees, but most often have died.  When such audits are conducted the results a generally dismal, but unfortunately the original project manager is already quite senior as an executive in a sister agency.   Accountability lacks.

1.2     The Philippine Government's Contemporary Effort

NGP Annual Accomplishment, 2011-2015Q1 reforestation was observed with the implementation of the National Greening Program (NGP)^[1]. As of March 2015, 1.01 million hectares or 85 percent of target forest area have been planted with around 602.7 million seedlings. However, the number of seedlings planted is way below the target level. The program aims to plant 1.5 billion trees or about 1,000 trees per hectare. At present, only around 593 trees per hectare have been planted.

[1] The NGP is a massive forest rehabilitation program of the government established by virtue of Executive Order No. 26 issued on February 24, 2011 by President Benigno S. Aquino III. It seeks to grow 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares nationwide within a period of six years, from 2011 to 2016.

2  The Possible

Most people have heard the rhetorical training question, mostly given to sales students, that asks:  “How do you eat an elephant?”  Of course, the answer is simple:  “One bite at a time.”  When we can demonstrate to one barangay how to grow trees for profit the neighboring barangay leaders will request the same training, so on and so forth.

 

Philippine Forests At A Glance, June 2015, AG-15-01, Senate of the Philippines

2.1     Our IDEA                                        

"Reforest the Philippines."

Everyone has had a big idea before, for instance John F. Kennedy had the idea of “Let’s put a man on the moon.”  Later, the idea was detailed more in a concept which added “and bring him back safely.”  Even more details surfaced when there was more thought put to the idea and finally a huge project was initiated around a brand new agency, the National Space Administration (“NASA”).  Well, the idea to “Reforest the Philippines” must be similar in approach as if the idea of JFK that took nearly a decade to achieve.

2.2    OUR CONCEPT is to make the IMPOSSIBLE not only POSSIBLE, but FEASIBLE

JFK had the budgetary might of the entire US government.  The cost of reforesting the Philippines if done in the typical way would have a price tag about equal to fulfilling JFK’s idea.  Of course such a price tag would immediately make this idea impossible, so we must change the funding source and the funding size.  How can such a change be feasible?

How do we turn the light green (barren, 2015) into dark green (forest 2030)?  There is a way that is inexpensive and effective, it is feasible.

3       FEASIBILITY

What follows are the hypotheticals of what make the growing of trees profitable for the everyday farmer on a sustainable basis and how to do that without government finance.  What follows is worth reading and worth joining the effort to make it happen.  Use your imagination for now and imagine ten million farmers, fewer than 250 in each barangay, sustainably growing trees for a living and as a result experiencing a First World standard of living and how this process gets started.

3.1    Imagine

Imagine that…

• The Philippines has 42,000 barangay or small villages each comprising of more than 1,000 hectares on average.  Each barangay has a spare 10 hectares, maybe not contiguous but arable nonetheless.
• There is a tree that is very easy to grow, that every Filipino is familiar and that is already growing in nearly every one of the barangay.
• One hundred thousand of this kind of tree can be planted on 10 hectares of barangay land and in order to achieve such a result only takes training.
• With training each of the 42,000 barangay can plant and grow the 100,000 trees and the nation's greening program will add 4.2 billion growing trees to its statistics.
• The tree produces highly nutritious and valuable leaves five times each year and the first harvest is within the first year of growth.

3.1.1   PROFITABILITY

Imagine that…

• Each tree produces each year the equivalent of one kilogram of finished product.
• The one kilogram of finished product sells wholesale for PhP1,200 (US$26.67).
• The cost of producing one kilogram of finished product is PhP600 (US13.33).
• The 100,000 trees each year produce 100,000 kilograms of finished product at a net earnings of PhP600 per kilogram (US$13.33) and a net of PhP 60,000,000 (US$1,333,333) per barangay.
• The profits are shared five ways, equally (20%) and that the shareholders are:
• The barangay, 2) The farmer families (av. 350), 3) The project, 4) The investors (members) and 5) The capital fund.
• The projected shareholders groups each receive Php 12,000,000 (US$266,666) annually.
• The farmers who provided the 10 hectares received out of the cost Php 5.4 per square meter or the equivalent of the net earnings from rice farming, plus each is part of their respective shareholder group receiving the profit sharing.

3.1.2    GNP increases:  Php 2.5 trillion (US$ 56 billion) ADDITION TO THE GNP

Imagine that…

• This all works, and
• We multiply the results by 42,000 to see by how much the GNP increases: Php 2.5 trillion (US$ 56 billion).

·         Just imagine... Could this really happen? 

4      Project 100,000 Answers the Question in the Positive

The demonstration agroforest is part of the training institute to become the legacy of  "Project 100,000".

THE IMPOSSIBLE IS REALLY POSSIBLE AND ACTUALLY FEASIBLE, more about this inside the next posting, "PARADIGM SHIFT via 'PROJECT 100,000".