STRAIGHT FROM THE BIG CITY
A five in one solution
BY IKE ‘KA IKING’ SEÑERES

MANILA -- Believe it or not, there is a five in one solution that we solve the problems of hunger, poverty, unemployment, crime, and food security all at once. And believe it or not, the solution is not even new, because it has always been with us since the beginning of human history.

Agriculture is the solution that will solve all the five problems earlier mentioned. Agriculture will produce food for the hungry. The production and processing activities will create employment that will reduce the poverty. Higher employment and lesser scarcity will reduce crime and on top of all these, it will give us food security which is of the highest national interest.

Although agriculture by itself is not new, there are new organic farming methods that would now enable farmers to make more money from their time and resource investments. The long running problem ever since is that the high costs of farm inputs practically make it impossible for the farmers to make money in their small business.

Thanks to the efforts of Filipino Engineer Walther Alvarez, a technology has been invented that now enables our farmers to produce their own feeds and fertilizers at very low costs. This technology is now being promoted by Sama-Kabuhayan, the lead organization of the United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA) for the agriculture sector.

As an added bonus, the feeds produced using the technology enables farm animals to reach market size faster, and also enables farm crops to yield more, aside from coming out as pure organic products.

For a long time now, we as a people have been bewailing the fact that our Asian neighbors are producing more farm animals and farm crops than we do, even if they have practically learned their modern agriculture methods from us.

Thanks to this new technology, we now have a chance to catch up with our neighbors, to win the race of regional competitiveness, at the same time possibly winning our other wars against hunger, poverty, unemployment and crime, on top of our goal to ensure our food security.

This technology is a treasure that has come to us like manna from heaven. We should not waste it, and we should make use of it like a blessing that come to our national life. Imagine the millions of our people who could have a better quality of life because of this blessing.
***
Everyone agrees that there is a need to reduce the incidence of poverty (poverty reduction) and to lessen the sufferings of the poor (poverty alleviation). There are many charitable organizations that are implementing programs for poverty reduction or poverty alleviation or both, but there is always that problem of raising funds for the sustenance of these programs. In order to address this problem, the Inter-Charity Network (ICN) is looking into ways and means of raising funds for its partner organizations, to help them sustain their charitable works.

Traditionally, charitable organizations would often rely on donations in order to keep going, but donor fatigue would always get in the way, thus causing charitable works to run dry and to die out. Could there be an alternative to donations? The answer is yes, and that is to give supporters value in exchange for their money. That way, supporters are able to contribute to the raising of funds, without draining their own resources.

Taking off from the successful idea of selling Girl Scout cookies for charity, ICN is now coming out with a line of basic commodities that will be sold by its partner organizations through their own members. The products will give value to the customers in exchange for their money, but at the same time, they will be helping their favorite charities in raising funds. This is in line with the 2 in 1 strategy that ICN is adopting in its fund raising programs.

Also following the 2 in 1 strategy, ICN will be collecting recyclables through the members of its partner organizations, in exchange for product coupons. The participating customers will get value in exchange for their recyclables, but at the same time, they will not only be able to help their favorite charities in raising funds, they will also be helping in reducing the volume of solid wastes.

Also in line with the 2 in 1 strategy, ICN will be conducting market surveys through the members of its partner organizations, in exchange for product discounts. The participating customers will get value in exchange for their survey responses, while helping their favorite charities in fund raising.

Charity is as old as poverty. The problem of poverty may be the same from the beginning of time, but the passage of time has given us new ways of dealing with the old problems.