The Balete-Hohenheim Connection

Sometime in 2002, Msgr. Pedro C. Frac, then the parish priest of the Balete Parish, invited scholars from the Hohenheim University in Stuttgart Germany to conduct onsite study concerning the upland rice in Balete. Prof. Klaus Becker of the Institute of Animal Production in the Tropics and Subtropics under the Department of Aquaculture System and Animal Nutrition of that university responded by sending in doctoral student, Michael Frei, to conduct research in the uplands of Oquendo, Guanko, Cortes and Arcangel.

The project pushed through immediately upon the arrival of the researcher. For several weeks Mr. Frei interacted with farmers and some parish workers/volunteers and managed to collect samples of almost all of the upland rice variety available. Those samples were sent for laboratory analysis in Stuttgart while Mr. Frei wrote his dissertation. Much later on, Prof. Becker himself came over to see for himself the place. He tried to interact with several group of people communicating to them the good news about traditional rice variety vis-a-vis the purported beta-carotene rich genetically-altered high yielding rice variety.

Michael Frei finished and eventually defended his dissertation. I supposed that he now earned his Ph.D and still very much involved in development research while taking into consideration the biodiversity of the players in field. Much of his works are now online downloadnable for free.

After Mr. Frei, Msgr. Frac recommended to Prof. Becker the enlisting of Sis. Vida Cordero of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Philippines (SFIC) as scholar to the Hohenheim University. Sis. Vida has a master's degree from the University of the Philippines. She considered exploring some issues pertaining to human resource management of small farmers. Prior to her, Lito (can't recall his surname) of the Bureau of Fishery and Aquatic Resources was also accepted at the university. I heard that he helped the priest in some projects when the latter was still parish priest of Libacao. He came to Balete much earlier than Mr. Frei to conduct study on integrated rice-fish culture. He used his connection to get several hundred of native catfish fingerling from BFAR Iloilo and released them in my ricefield. Unfortunately, for us, the experiment was a fluke as the bordering rice paddies were all using synthetic chemicals for their pesticides and fertilizers and the catfish migrated into the nearby canal for their survival. Nevertheless, I heard that his other experiments in Calizo and Arcangel or (was it Morales?) were all resounding successes--which went on to show that integrated rice-fish culture is a serious business only for full-time farmers; which thus gently told me with my harvest of 2 cavans and zero fish catch that I must leave the farming affairs to farmers and concentrate on my work as advocate for developmental change in my beloved town.

So thus I filed my early retirement for what could be a wonderful career as a philosophizing farmer and turned over my field of dreams to my relative.