Ep 36 | Adriel Dave “AD” Alvarez on the Farmers' Perspective

Join us for a new episode for the year where we speak to our first farmer on the show, Adriel Dave “AD” Alvarez, who is a farmer and a member of the Global Farmer Network. AD's past experiences in microfinancing provides a deeper understanding and insight to the farmers' perspectives on the ground, highlighting the challenges and opportunities facing farmers in Asia, particularly smallholders. AD also emphasizes the need for better information sharing, technology access, and collaboration between farmers, policymakers, and the public to address issues like climate change and ensure a sustainable future for agriculture.

This episode is packed with insights, challenges, and hope for the future of agriculture in Asia. Tune in and get inspired.

Transcript

Duke Hipp: Hi everybody, I'm Duke Hipp, host of Asia's Farm to Fork: Five Good Questions podcast. Very excited to have our first episode of the new year. And with that, we're excited about having a very special guest and frankly, hard to believe our first farmer on the podcast. So we went straight to the top to get the best farmer from the region to get us on the right track there. We have with us Adriel Dave 'AD' Alvarez, farmer within the region here in the Philippines and is a member also of the Global Farmer network. Hi AD, how are you?

AD: I'm good. Thank you for having me in your show.

Duke: Excellent. We'll get started straight away. And first question. Yeah, I'm anxious to jump in because it's really a question about you and your journey, which is not necessarily typical, I think, and so, looking forward to hearing about that. 

As I said, this is the first podcast of the year. Hard to believe, first farmer we've had on the podcast. And in the spirit of sort of beginnings in a new year, new season, maybe understand a little bit better about your past and your career path that you took, that brought you to this point in farming and share a little bit about yourself. I know you didn't start necessarily on the farm or didn't start in farming, but maybe a bit about your journey and also about the Global Farmer Network. That's something that we've yet to get into as well.

AD: I was a microfinance executive for ten years. That was the last job I had. And in microfinance, to some people, they know it as a poverty alleviation banking, wherein we look at developmental work using lending and financing using nontraditional banking principles of unsecured loan. So that's what microfinance does. 

But after ten years, I was visiting a place called Camotes Islands in the Philippines, where our farm was. And many times when we do the journey, we would notice a lot of poverty in agriculture and among farmers. And that's why 14 years ago now, we decided to be farmers, to be more grounded on finding solutions for poverty in agriculture. Because if you're just from the outside, there will be many theories that you would think would be the problem. But it's different when you are on the ground and you are trying to find a solution for the poverty in agriculture. And hopefully I could do something while I can. 

And then I became a member of the Global Farmer [Network]. But before that, I was first a member of the Cornell alliance for Science back in 2017. I was invited as a farmer leader to attend the first training among farmers in Illinois. And that's where I first met Mary Booth from the Global Farmer [Network]. And in 2018, I was invited to join the global Farmer Network in the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa. That's how I got started with Global Farmer [Network]. And by the way, Global Farmer [Network] is a special group of farmers coming from around the world that speak about technology, trade and farming advocacies. So that's how I would put my story in brief. But if you have time, we can have more discussions about my backstory.

Duke: That's a great place to start. Well, with the next question, it's sort of like a next step in this conversation, and it gets into sort of, again, maybe an unconventional path that you took to get to this point, certainly. And as we look at the current landscape of farmers that are out there, it's hard to dispute that there's an aging that's going on with the farmer landscape, at least across Asia Pacific. And it's a tough job, one of the most important jobs. It's also one of the toughest jobs. And so it's not necessarily on the top of the list necessarily for career paths of a lot of the younger generation members out there today and what they're embarking on. 

So from your perspective, again, which is a very unique perspective, are there some ways you can think of or you think is important at all as far as making farming more attractive to that next generation?

AD: It certainly is a big concern among the farming community in Asia. As we look at the demographics, we have an aging membership in the farmers group in Asia. And one of the things that I'm also involved in in the Philippines is I'm the member of the Philippine Maize Federation. I'm currently a board member and also serve as the secretary of the board. And this gets me more involved in interacting with the Department of Agriculture and see the problem from top and while also on the ground. And here's what I see in relation to your question. 

Asia agriculture are mostly small scale farmers because economic challenges are high due to inefficiency and limited leverage of small scales. And because of that lower leverage, capital access are limited due to perceived high risk and exposure with small scale. And leverage is everything in trying to access capital. And I see that as a big problem. And because of that in Asia, we can make agriculture attractive if we show that it's a good livelihood. That's the normal thing anywhere in the world - if you see agriculture career as a good option, if it is a livelihood that people can survive on. But then that's the challenge, a special challenge in small scale agriculture in Asia. 

Because in the absence of those leverage, it's really hard to get the younger ones to go in and to sustain the older ones. And that's why we see a lot of migration from Asia, going to other more advanced agricultural places among agriculture workers. But I think what we can do is we can create programs of consolidation, either by cooperatives or subcontracting systems. When I say that, small scale can still be small scale, but there should be some point of consolidation. And when I say consolidation, we don't need one owner for big chunks of land. It can still be small scale holders. 

And by doing that, we can be creative and we can make more leverage in terms of the volume we can produce as a consolidated group of farmers. And that will make it financially attractive. It will open up a lot of opportunities for access to capital. And if we cannot create those leverage naturally, there will be limitations for small scale. So long as we still think that we can do it alone, in small scales, there will be a big gap. And without consolidating, we will find lesser younger generations going into agriculture, because that's just natural and logical. If there's no money in it, why would they go into it? They have to secure their own future as well. 

So another thing I see a lot in Asia is the subsidies and things like that, that the government extension work are doing. There's a problem with subsidies. Subsidies are sometimes helpful, but not effective in most cases in the long run. Remember, I came from a microfinance background. Dole out will not create an environment of entrepreneur. Well, a better alternative for subsidies is we create incentive systems instead of subsidy. 

That's what's happening in Japan - instead of giving them incentives on seeds and fertilizer, they would give incentives at the end of the production. And those who are really on the go will really find ways to keep and increase their production. Because if they increase their production, they will get a higher incentive, not subsidy. So that's an alternative solution. But again, the overarching need to create younger generation to go into this agriculture, is the need to create viable ecosystems that agriculture economies will thrive. Small scale operations cannot naturally do that unless we accommodate small land holdings to consolidated systems.

Duke: Yeah, thank you. It's a great point. And as you're talking, I'm also thinking about the Global Farmer Network and the technology part of that as well. You mentioned earlier, maybe that's a bridge as well in creating those better outcomes and better solutions and driving the bottom line. Right, for farmers as well, I'm sure.

So, third question, moving right along here through the interview. You and I met face to face in Jakarta last year, and I remember having a conversation about climate change. You were part of a panel we had, and that's the question I want to get to next. I think that discussion, that's happening, of course, on a huge scale internationally, by governments, private sector, civil society, but not enough by farmers. And shame on everybody out there for not having enough conversations where farmers are part of those dialogues that are happening, particularly with food production and food systems and the impact climate change is having. So here we are. 

Fast forward to today and we're having this chat and I want to bring up the topic of climate change and really tee it up for you. Anything you can share from your experiences farming in this region, the front lines of climate change impact. What do you think is needed to help farmers like yourself really weather the storm we're seeing again - increased droughts, floods, weather events that are unexpected?

AD: Yeah, it's really a difficult conversation sometimes when policymakers and what's happening on the ground when we talk about climate change, because sometimes it becomes a controversial discussion. But for farmers, we don't really like so much controversy because we're busy enough trying to grow a crop or get through our growing season. And sometimes when it's least expected, we will face difficulty and challenges in the process. 

And then here comes the policymakers. They try to discuss things as if we're not doing enough. So that's a gap that we need to keep on working on and we need to have that constant discussion. Otherwise we will see a lot more protests happening because of the disconnect. And that's a shame, because we need to work on the details and the facts and all those things now about climate change. It's really a serious matter of concern for everyone that is alive now and especially for the future generations to come. 

I was watching a Neil deGrasse Tyson talking to Gavin Schmidt of NASA Goddard Institute on YouTube, and they were tracking that 2023 is the hottest recorded year based on their instruments. And that is scary to notice. And not much discussion is happening because, again, of that protracted debate going on whether climate change is real or not. But these are data. These are hard data that we can see and also from the ground. 

As a farmer, weather extreme happens and we encounter challenges and we see more plants having more stress than the usual. More stress means weaker crops, more disease, fungi, insects, and in short, significant drop in yield. And with this crazy food inflation happening, we cannot have a good price and we cannot have a good yield. That's a bad combination for a farmer to reach the good bottom line. Now, the solution is we need more outside of the box approach, because the usual thing we do does not work anymore. 

We try to approach farming the ways that our forefathers have done, thinking that it will happen the same way. It's not the same. There is a change happening in the environment that we need to adopt. And one of the solutions we can think of is we need more thinking out of the box approach, like the usual investment should be. Not anymore usual, but we need more proactive investment in technology, especially in Asia. We think it's a tropical area, but still. Now with this extreme weather, even if we are a tropical country, we will experience more extreme weather, more drought and things like that, or overabundance of rainwater. So we need a more controlled environment, like greenhouses, irrigation, more biotechnology developed crops that can handle the environmental pressures and the advancement we're experiencing now with the NGTs (New Genomic Techniques). The society must be made aware that farming in the past is very different from what farming is now. And we fail to do that. We fail to inform the public. The gap between farmers and consumers will further expand, and there will be a wider disconnect. The disconnect is already happening, so we had to do more and really approach it in an out of the box approach, and it's no longer farming as usual.

Duke: Thanks for that AD. Coming from you, again, that means everything. I think we need to have more conversations like this and platforms like you as well, to be able to share that and share your perspective. The fourth question I have, one of the things we talk a lot about, it comes up on this podcast quite a bit, is we talked about disconnect just a minute ago, and one of the things that we think is a disconnect, at least where I sit, is around technology, new technology, and regulatory frameworks. 

No matter how great the technology is, if we don't have the regulatory framework so that farmers can access it and realize it and be able to utilize some of these tools, then what does it matter? So, in that spirit of things, talking about Agtech innovation in that regulatory space, I'm wondering if there maybe is a technology comes to mind for you that you think about that farmers would benefit from in this region in particular, but for whatever reason, access isn't there, and maybe your thoughts on that.

AD: I do have something to share about that. Before I answer that, I really want to commend what CropLife is doing in the connecting space. Because in places like Asia where the economic challenges and the small landholders are predominant, people with that economic challenge will not naturally get information out there and connect with the policymakers. It's not natural. We're just trying to survive on our own and do our stuff, and that's what's happening. 

And with the help of CropLife, we get to voice more farmers' perspective, make more connection. You were talking about the Jakarta meeting we had, and I saw how disconnected those policies were with what's really happening on the ground. And because farmers will not be driven to connect and share what's happening, it helps a lot when somebody is ushering that. 

Now, going back to your question, I think what is more very important thing to do is we need to make the information reach our policymakers and the public. That's what I really want to say. We cannot just push without them. That's the tendency when we do things and we neglect policymakers and we neglect the public, there will be a problem. We need them to get involved. We need the farmers up there talking to them, because there are so many, plenty of examples of technologies that we need yesterday but are still jammed up in the pipeline due to this knowledge and information gaps, especially by our policymakers. 

In the Philippines, you have the BT eggplant that is pending in court as of this recording, and also the golden rice. It has been approved, but now there's a court case that suspends it or holds it down. And there are so many technologies out there like we have, like rice tolerant to saline water. We have drought tolerant corn, also biotechnology on animals, better crops, protection chemicals. There are so many examples. And each of these examples is a challenge to make the public understand that they are safe. We need more science, more communication, and we need more effective farming. And the information space really is where we need to work on in this region because again, like I said earlier, farmers in this region are small scale and they're faced with their own challenges, and they don't naturally get together just to talk to policymakers unless somebody helps them to do that.

Duke: Great answer. Thank you for that. Thanks for those kind words about CropLife, and thanks for sharing your perspective. And again, I think I would say more of this in a higher level, more feedback from farmers, smallholders. You're right. It's a huge challenge for this region to the smallholders region and just helping at least provide a platform where they can express some of those opinions as well. 

Well, a lot of tough topics, tough questions, climate change, smallholder challenges, technology. We've covered a lot. Maybe we lighten it up a little bit with the last question to the fun topic of food -oOne of my favorite topics. We are grateful for the farmers in producing the food that we all love and depend on and really enjoy, especially in the festive time of the season, of the year, rather, in Asia. Is there one food that you think about when you think about your favorite food among the many great choices here in Asia?

AD: Well, for me, food is highly emotional, especially when I became a farmer. To pick one in Asia as a favorite will do no justice to our colorful, diverse culture and cuisine. So many asian food are the best in the world. But for the sake of your question, I would say I like Adobo of the Philippines, but I also love Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Italian, American food. Like you, I love food.

Duke: So yeah, you're right, there is an emotional connection. It's one of those things. I'm not a farmer, but you can have a certain dish, a certain food, and it evokes a certain memory. And adobo is a great answer. And then we haven't had that yet. So we will chalk out one for Adobo. Excellent. Thanks again, thanks for this. With that, you're officially off the Five Good Questions hot seat. Thank you for doing this again today and hope to talk again soon.