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Showing posts from August, 2018

Imperative 31 : 12th vision: ASEAN Festival Malls worldwide

    How may we fast-track the greening of Southeast Asia's denuded regions thru ASEAN Festival Malls?  Since climate change is humanity's problem, the world's governments, corporations and employee masses have to support the 3rd World tropics' green mega co-ops from planning stage to their world-scale production and marketing endeavors.  Doing so will help provide the funds (out of profits) that will protect and care for all mega co-op agro-forests for all eternity.  Fortunately, the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is already well-organized for development purposes.  Thru blogs and websites, environment-conscious employee masses and companies worldwide should now promote the vision of ASEAN peoples, governments and companies setting up and operating thousands of mega co-op joint venture groups that build agro-forests and green rural factories in Southeast Asia and the rest of the tropics.  However, mega co-op success even with ASEAN alone will

Imperative 30: 11th vision: Build-operate-transfer mini hydropower chains

    Eighteen million hectares of Philippine uplands originally contained thousands of mountain streams that drained to 240 major rivers which flowed along 12 million hectares of plains towards the sea.  These days the uplands that rise at average 1,500 meters are so denuded of trees that most of their streams dry up during the country's six summer months.  Even in regions with nearly-balanced rain and dry days year-round, the absence of trees indicates near-total absence of mountain streams.  When the pouring rains come over the next six months, hardly any forest or greenery absorbs and stores upland waters, resulting to heavy topsoil erosion, flash floods of stream waters due to absence of water-storing plant roots, silting and shallowing of lowland rivers, rising frequency of landslides that at times bury entire villages, sudden collapse of upland road sections, and widespread floods in plains, towns and cities.  The combined scourges create terrible tragedies and billions of pe

Imperative 29: 10th vision: mega co-op sites for foreign satellite schools

    Elementary and High School site spaces in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Coastal China and South Korea are so limited and expensive that students make do with crowded environments, lack of sufficient sports grounds, and in certain places polluted air as well.  Food and service prices in such school sites are 3-5 times those of the Philippines.  Mega co-ops may address the issue at mutual profit for all involved by offering satellite school sites to such foreign schools on 50-year lease.  Such sites should have wide academic and sports grounds and be located near forest or beachfront resorts.  Mega co-ops should provide adjacent sites for condominiums, hotels and inns.  As with the previously described resorts (Post 28), all school buildings and facilities (single or clustered) should be surrounded by 'jacket cliff' buildings planted to flowers, salad greens, fruit-bearing plants and vegetables that serve as profitable 'vertical farms' while preserving or enhan

Imperative 28: 9th vision: joint venture mega co-op resorts

    Ten  or so Philippine mega co-ops may pool capital and set up one resorts-operating company in joint venture with foreign CSR companies and 1st World companies engaged in tourism, hotels and inns.  The joint venture company may thence apply for low-interest loans from Climate Change and World Aid Funds to cover 75% of project cost.  Loan repayments and interest should augment said green funds' budgets. Capital sharing for the resort joint ventures may be 60-40% (locals more) as required by Philippine law.  The resorts should be constructed near sites where BOT companies have set up mini dam hydropower chains, biogas power facilities and geothermal power plants that together produce gigagawatt-level electricity and are able to install power lines to resort facilities.        Every mega co-op with its 3,000-hectare (or larger) agro-forest  may accommodate five or so joint venture forest resorts with waterfalls, swimming pools, mountaintop camping grounds, scenic mountain eleva

Imperative 27: 8th vision: mega co-ops' contract production of organic meats

    Upscale markets in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Korea and other countries prefer organically-grown and processed pork and chicken meats.  Reason: current commercially-grown chicken and pigs worldwide are fed with concentrates that are loaded with such chemicals as growth enhancers, disease preventives, synthetic vitamins, meat 'beautifiers', feeds preservatives, vaccines, anti-caking, anti-rancidity and anti-mold agents, etc.  Portions of such chemicals are now known to stay within the meats even after slaughter and cooking.  In due time they become causes of cancers, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, kidney and liver disease, etc.     Health-conscious consumers who are aware of such dangers prefer to consume organically grown and processed meats, despite such products' premium prices.  Organic pork and chicken meat come from livestock raised on the range, the animals free to move about within fenced feedlots that have roofed shelters versus rains.  They a

Imperative 26: 7th vision: mega co-ops' contract raising of livestock

    Ranchers and livestock raisers from Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India, Middle East and other countries may multiply their stocks of cattle, sheep, goats, buffaloes, antelopes, and deer, and even add horses and donkeys (for sale to resorts) thru feedlot-style contract breeding and grow-out with Philippine mega co-ops that operate agro-forests.  Restaurateurs from Coastal China, Japan, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and other countries may also engage in Philippine mega co-ops' organic style contract growing of pigs, range chicken, ducks, turkey, ostrich and quail.  Target: supply portions of the 2.5 billion Chinese, Indian and Pacific Rim markets with refrigerated meat cuts, jerkies (semi-dried, flavored meat cuts) and barbecues, smoked duck, shawarma cuts, boiled quail eggs (for soups), sausages, milk, cheese, yogurt and food factory ingredients.  Organic meats with special qualities and flavors (contractors' secrets) are highly desired even at premium prices i

Imperative 25: 6th vision: 1st World CSR companies' toll roads

    Mega co-op agro-forest clusters earning millions of dollars out of export sales each month will surely afford paying toll fees to a road-making consortium set up by scores of 1st World CSR companies.  Built on build-operate-transfer basis, the initial toll roads should connect to existing rural roads to access millions of hectares of currently denuded tropical lands.  To access further millions of hectares of current Philippine regions that have zero road networks, the BOT consortia may coordinate with pre-coops to set up new region-wide toll road networks based on mega co-op Movement plans.   Mega co-ops and their BOT partners may thereby transform the entire Philippines' currently denuded uplands into greenhouse gas-absorbing forests and croplands that operate in perpetuity.       The said 1st World road-building consortia  (which includes civil works companies) may sell billion-dollar low-interest bonds to the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, States' Aid agencies a

Imperative 24: 5th vision: 1st World CSR companies' upland cable transport systems

    Fast track reforestation and maximum efficiency upland farming and livestock raising on the Philippines' 18 million hectares of mountains that rise from 1,000 to 2,300 meters in height requires tiers of upland elevators, heavy duty cable lines with motorized cabs, and zip cable lines in strategic areas of every 3,000-hectare mega co-op agro-forest.  The elevator and cable transports should speed up delivery of personnel, farm tools, tree saplings for reforestation, crop harvests, construction materials, etc.  Vertical frame freight elevator systems may require a unit every 50 meters of an average 1,500 meter high mountainside cliff or carved 'notch' all the way to mountaintop.  Where slopes are at low degrees, roofed ramps should connect one elevator to another, enabling personnel and tools to be lifted to specific mountain heights for perpetual agro-forest operations throughout entire mountain ranges at minimal effort.  Strategic areas of mountain ranges should be pr

Imperative 23: 4th vision: 1st World CSR companies' upland water supply systems

    Philippine upland summers are the worst times for mountain dwellers' kids who have to trek for hours over mountains to get mere jerry cans of drinking water at the nearest spring.  The tragedy is prevalent among isolated settlements in the Philippines' 18 million hectares of uplands where mega co-ops should build their agro-forests.  Where will the thousand-hectare agro-forests get their water?  Here's the modeling scheme:      A group of five mega co-ops managing 15,000 hectares of agro-forest sets up a company that will partner with several 1st World corporations (including one water equipment manufacturing company) in order to provide irrigation and potable water supply systems for the entire area, its processing factories, its employees' villages, and small farms and towns adjacent to the area.  Capital is 60% co-op and 40% foreign partners to comply with Philippine law.   Green Funds and 1st World Aid agencies provide 75% of project cost thru equipment loans

Imperative 22 : 3rd Vision: Mega co-op agroforests' joint venture biogas-fueled power plants

    At full operations stage, each mega co-op's agro-forest farm should be expected to produce thousand-ton stacks of farm wastes (stalks, leaves, straws) out of some 3,000 hectares of agro-forests that perpetually grow trees, vines, grains, vegetables, grasses, root crops and other greenery.  Each co-op may also operate feedlots for thousands of sheep, cattle, pigs, deer, antelope, ostrich, range chicken, ducks and goats under forest trees largely on contract production terms with foreign ranchers and restaurateurs.  The animals will be expected to yield enormous quantities of fecal waste.  As environmentalists know, crop and livestock wastes when combined in sealed digester tanks can generate methane gas which may be used to fuel power generators.     Methane is 25 times worse than CO2 as greenhouse gas, and it stays within the atmosphere for around 12 years before transforming into CO2 and water vapor.  Sequestering methane from generation source is therefore a great help

Imperative 21: 2nd vision: Mega co-ops' joint venture production of ethanol, sweeteners and ethanol-fueled vehicles

    South American production of ethanol from sugarcane is said to garner a 50% gross profit margin.  Mega co-ops may raise the margin to 70% or so by replacing sugar cane with sweet sorghum as feedstock.  Sugarcane is harvested once a year versus sweet sorghum at 2.5 times a year.  Furthermore, irrigation and cultivation costs for sweet sorghum are just a third that of sugarcane, and sweet sorghum juice is sweeter than sugarcane juice.  Sweet sorghum juice may also be converted into bottled syrup or vinegar for sale to retail stores, homes and food factories.  Sweet sorghum grains may be used for production of stevia-sweetened fruity cookies sprinkled with herbal anti-oxidant powders as preventives versus diabetes, hypertension and ageing.  Sweet sorghum leaves and stalks are tasty fodder for cattle, goats and sheep. Thru strip cropping and alternate planting and harvest of farm plots, sorghum harvests can be perpetual (the Philippines has year-round sun), which means endless produ

Imperative 20: State aid is critical to finance mega co-op feasibility studies and technical transfers

      Once mega co-op proponents have obtained pledges at say P100 million (with 50% ready cash) from the mass of involved employees, State agencies, corporate and institutional investors local and foreign, all involved should conduct elections via website to appoint management teams composed of members who are management level retirees. During organization and feasibility study activities, retiree management teams should be budgeted with mere allowances at corporate supervisor rates because all of them already enjoy large pensions and most are expected to be earning out of their 'retiree businesses'.  Their full compensation should be  a percentage of profits to assure their exertion of utmost skills for all investors' benefit.       Said retiree management teams should embark upon the following activities: a) conduct website elections for a ministerial Board, register the co-op and deposit the investors' initial 50% cash in bank.  By-laws should include a provisio

Imperative 19: 1st vision: 2K-hectares Philippine mega co-op agroforest farms

    Since end-1980s, the Philippines' Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources had been offering 25-year (renewable once) forest land development joint ventures at thousand-hectare levels to local co-ops and associations.  Per DENR terms, 90% of joint venture area is to be reforested and 10% converted to farms and ranches for daily income.  20% of timber harvests go to State.       As of 1990s, several thousand rural multi-purpose co-ops and associations mostly led by NGOs had availed of the scheme. In many cases, foreign NGOs took care of funding for operations.  Land areas granted came up to a thousand to 10,000 hectares per joint venture, the total occupying over ten million out of 18 million hectares of mostly uplands.   Unfortunately, most of the co-ops floundered or tanked due to lack of sufficient funding, ultra low production for 'daily bread', expensive distances to markets, zero exports, rebel/army clashes and intrigues, unprofessional management, and NGO wit