Life abroad: As Robert sees it

I have been neglecting my blog this last week. Sorry, Jon Jon got me sick. It was the first week of school and by the end, everyone was sick. One of our helpers has not come to work for three days because she has been sick. I was dying on Saturday but spent most of the day battling with MS Money trying to enter all my account data. It is done, well almost. I am still trying to figure out why my balance is off $130 in my checking account. Ok, figured it out. Just a recent check for taxes that was not entered.

My cousin Danielle has been talking about this Cousin Bobby idea for a long time. Basically, it is an idea that revolves around my travels and using that to educate children about the world. Mostly in geography but Rasa and I would like to expand that to culture because that is what really makes it interesting to read about. I have been toying with this idea back and forth with my other cousin Samantha who is going on 12 years old. I have writing to her describing all the little quirks of life I have seen here and in Indonesia. Interesting stuff, she thought.

Danielle wants to migrate the idea onto the net, which I think could come to be a very powerful medium for this type of information. If it was done right, I think kids would be hooked. But that is the problem, getting someone with the knowledge of website design who could make it happen. She has recently moved to Florida where it seems the rest of my family is ending up. Another cousin, Brian lives there too and it turns out he works on computers and can do the programming stuff. So, it might all come together after all.

Rasa would do the Winnie-the-Pooh type animations about my Christopher Robin adventures. Danielle would be our point man in the states corresponding back and forth with Brian. Who would put it all together and show it to the world. Of course, this all depends on what kind of business plan we can pitch to Brian’s company and how they can make it happen. But it is all possible and that is the first step.

I wrote to Danielle and now I am just waiting to hear back from her. Going home now because it is already 11pm and I am here way to late playing on the computer. I say it is too late because there are no girls in here now and all the boys are sitting in front of the computer watching porn that is way too loud with girls that are obviously faking it. Well not the choking sound, that was definitely real. Good night.

The more I have been researching the information on this green charcoal, the more I am starting to think I should change the emphasis of the project its self. My main goal was to stop the burning of the sugarcane fields. The green charcoal doesn’t really do that, it mostly reduces the burning but does go a long way to stopping illegal logging, which is just as important.

What I have found just baffles me. Well, information I found goes a long way to confirming my suspicions about the Filipinos’ lack of ability to innovate. They just can’t think out of the box and refuse to do so if no one else is doing it. Burning their fields is done because everyone else does it and has been done since they can remember. Actually, field burning came about with the green revolution in farming in the 1950’s; with higher yielding crops and bi-yearly harvest. Since then the excess bio-waste has just been burnt to make way for the next crop cycle and no one can remember this.

Burning takes all the carbon out of the field, reduces organic matter in the soil, and increases the pH of the soil. The average increase in fertilizer applied goes up by about .4 bags per year per hectare. Besides these obvious effects it also causes erosion in upland areas resulting in the siltation of water bodies. Just look at the water of western Negros compared to the eastern side and you clearly see the evidence of this. The ground water has also been contaminated by the high application rates of nitrogen fertilizer and persistent herbicides such as simazine. It has reduced biodiversity, harming populations of snakes, wildcats and ground nesting birds. The air quality has deteriorated with burning, leading to respiratory ailments, eye disease and increased incidence of cancer among sugar workers. Also, Rasa needs an inhaler during harvest season. I could go on and on…

By changing the simple practice of cutting the leaves from the stalks during harvest season to mid-growing season and leaving them on the ground to decompose has a considerable impact. It can increase yields by 5% the first year and by 20% after 5 years. On top of that it creates a demand for filed labor in the off season, which in its self is a major goal of development. But the most important is that no burning is necessary. So why doesn’t anyone do it? I have no idea. The only demonstration site I could find was a farmer in the Flores area and the only reason why he tried it is because he is an American that married a local and lives here. His neighbors still refuse to try the process.

The first comment I here when I mention this to farmers is that it will kill the plant to cut the leaves mid-season. Sugarcane produces 25-40 leaves per plant and a mature cane has only 20% (5-8) actively photosynthesizing leaves so all the rest can be cut and left to decompose. The second reason for not doing this is because it doesn’t really make a difference in reducing the fertilizer costs and extra labor cost in the off season. Analysis of the Greenhouse Gas cycle identified that 9.67 tonnes/ha/yr of CO2 equivalents are being reduced with the implementation of this method in conjunction with the use of biological N fixing sugarcane varieties. That translates into a savings of $130/ha through reduced inorganic fertilizer expenditures. This represents a savings equivalent to 14% of the total annual revenues small farmers obtain from sugarcane farming. That is a lot of money here.

So even after all these facts, no one still cares enough to make a change. I am beginning to think the Philippines is destined to stay the way it is and never develop into a vibrant economy.