Two years ago when public service was at its best :) Reposting my Think Paper on agricultural extension and of how I loved government service at that time because of what ATI was doing... An in-depth discussion (written while soaking in the culture of Singapore for a week) of the extension services through Hillman's concept of development - "one of growing down rather than growing up."
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| "Plants can't grow heavenward without first growing downward." - James Hillman (Photo by RJ Tabinas) |
Growth in a usual sense is a forward process, an upward movement that is always perceived of moving on fast enough to cope with an ever-changing environment. May it be towards technological advancement, economic rise, scaling up, or expanding horizons – all up, forward, and looking to beyond. But growth does not always have to be in such ways that as a person we are an outsider to growth. Like a person squatting in a lawn, amidst the high rise buildings in a highly developed country, we need not just look using the lens of a third person and see growth exclusive of ourselves. Instead, we can look down, look at our own nature and deeply understand the person that we are. Progress is not only of the vast skyscrapers that surround a person in a first world country. Improvements can also be felt as we take a deeper look into our system. According to James Hillman (1995) in his book Kinds of Power: A Guide to Its Intelligent Uses, “going on means going downward into the faults of our culture.” Growth can also be deepening, an intensification, shedding, and emptying. That to become profoundly mature, one has to undergo what it is like to be on the downside and learn every aspect of values there is before growing to something even larger than life.
Contrary to an advanced nation’s holistic structure, the Philippines’ agricultural extension system as I see it is experiencing in many different ways the four aspects of growth as mentioned by James Hillman.
Being the extension arm of the Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) ensures to “deliver quality extension services in agriculture and fisheries throughout its network of training centers in the regions. ATI caters to various sets of clients in the rural communities. Aside from farmers and fisher folks: rural women, youth, senior citizens, Indigenous People (IP), persons with disabilities, rebel returnees, and other marginalized groups are capacitated and assisted by the Institute.
Growth is ever present and as for ATI, it is through the different programs administered by the agency that that progression can be perceived.
Growth as deepening. “Deepening forces an organization to go into itself to get to the bottom of its troubles” Hillman states. Looking at the situation and of what is happening in the rural communities, we see the underprivileged and disadvantaged people at the lowermost. As we go down, we see them ever present everywhere. The out-of-school-youths struggling to help their parents earn just enough for the family’s needs; IPs in the high mountains eager to acquire formal education as communities in the lowlands have; inmates behind prison bars yearning to be given the chance to revive themselves from their desolation; physically challenged individuals zealous to prove their worth in the community; people in conflict areas fighting their way out from insurgency and poverty; or ageing farmers patiently cultivating their fields to feed the entire nation. They are there, in the deep, in the lower echelon, striving and living out each day of the impoverish state they are unfortunately in.
Everyday they fought their own struggles without winning. And more than once in our life we see them or have come across their paths but did we ever care to stop and look deep into their needs?
It was not more than 2 years ago that my eyes were opened. Not many people know of this bureau, more so of the services that the Institute has been providing. Even I was expecting just another corrupt government agency. But luckily through the visits in the region where the real action is, I have witnessed the organization's greater purpose. ATI had been extending its hands in the big deep dark hole enclosing the marginalized individuals. Extending its arms is not even enough, for it has gone down to the bottom and joined in the crowd. Going downward, experiencing their pain and sufferings, relating to and knowing their troubles and fears - that is extension. It is to immerse; empathize; bring non-formal education, agricultural technologies, knowledge; and empower the vulnerable in the rural areas. Staying with them and helping cleaning up the mess is the best way to alter the circumstance that they are in (Hillman, 1995).
To lift the grassroots up from the dark hole, the organization’s prime vision is being shared among its workforce. Much has been sacrificed in order to genuinely serve the clienteles who are in need along the value chain. The time, resources, and effort exerted especially by the people in the regional training centers are also too deep to gauge. Late night sessions, working on holidays, being away from the family for weeks just so to reach the mountainous and far flung areas - are just a few of their sacrifices. Trainings done in communities with exceeding number of keen participants and surpassing the allowed budget are most of the time shouldered by the assigned training specialist just so nobody would go back to their homes frustrated.
Reaching deeply means not in numbers but in the quality of service given to the partners. Focusing on particular deprived groups, or individuals who are willing to help themselves - these are the types of people who really need backing. To assess their needs in the fields is through interaction. Understanding better their situation gives leeway to further relationships. And with this, partnership is made possible. Gaps are bridged, needs are filled, and strong relationships are deepened. Both the organization and clients grow through the gained experiences. As Hillman stated, “growth that is evolving and maturing could be called growth of soul.”
Growth as intensification. “The love brought to the art of your work and the love in which the work is done,” is growth in intensity (Hillman, 1995). It is not focused on grandness but of the meaning of the work, of what we are doing.
How powerful are the extension services provided to its intended recipients? Is it making any impact in the lives of those people helped? Growth in intensity is described in the book of Hillman as an artist’s dedication and passion with his craft. It is said to include the artist’s “enthusiasm, ecstasies, and sweat.”
Focusing growth as intensification in extension brings up the organization and the individual worker’s obsession of service. The burning desire that fuels every nerve to serve with compassion is considered growth in itself.
Such particularity in extension may not be widespread, but it sees to it that every program no matter how small it is - influences the lives of the beneficiaries. Giving the marginalized the power to build their own dreams. Specifically, these activities include capability-building activities for the different rural sectors. Intensive trainings are administered to bring out the best of every participant. With the farmers’ years of experience in farming, they were seen as the most suited teachers to impart agriculture technologies and skills to their fellow farmers and other interested individuals in their respective communities. Through the program on Schools for Practical Agriculture (SPA), a number of farmer leaders have been devotedly assisted and further molded to become lecturers using their own developed farms as the school. These farmer lecturers are able to cater to some tourists but more importantly, they play a vital role for the practicum of the OSY scholars of ATI’s agri-entrepreneurship courses.
Another intensification that shows growth is the education support for OSYs who are children of small-scale farmers and former rebel leaders. Rigorous hands on training in developed farms are experienced by the scholars throughout their 2-year trimester program. The course is composed of 30% pure lecture and 70% practicum.
Intensification rises as ATI services were furthered to conflict areas in Mindanao through the From Arms to Farms Program: Fostering Peace through Agri-Fishery Development in Conflict Areas and with the ARMMSarap Project in Basilan. All initiatives aimed to intensify and promote the organic way of farming. Other than that, the agency has also left a mark in a deprived Manobo tribe in the highlands of Cagayan de Oro and uplifted the drowned spirits of the PWDs in Pagadian City.
Growth as shedding. It is, as Hillman states a “radical shedding of identities.” However this shedding is not centered on the concept of decay or disorder but that of the changing life of an individual to a more positive tone. It is a shedding which still affects the entire human body and soul, a transformation that involves peeling off the dark parts of their being. Letting go and turning back against the hopeless situation in order to grasp growth and have a new outlook in life.
Growth as shedding in extension means changing lives. Shedding is turning a gambler and drunkard in Bukidnon to a farmer lecturer that looks at the future of his daughter who is about to take up college. Shedding is that of giving chance to prisoners in Palawan to engage in farming, learn more on organic agriculture and acquire livelihood skills that they may use even while still inside their confines. It is convincing former rebels and even those still active to surrender their hearts and devote themselves on cultivating their fields.
Letting their guards down, these people have thrown off their mistrust to the government and learned to open themselves for new possibilities alighting ahead of them. They have shed off the negativities they once were facing for a long time and shook off what has been in order for new souls to come out of the shell.
Growth as repetition. “Repetitive style of work, sense of ritual and beauty and the quality of their product (Hillman, 1995),” describes some of the cyclic patterns in doing extension services. Certain activities and skills cannot be imbibed overnight, thus the need for repetition. Rituals or trainings that are consistently done hone the abilities of the targeted participants of the organization. With constant practice, farmers, rural women, youth and other sectors are able to apply what has been learned and imparted to them. It is with repetition that relationships across differing individuals grow. Procedures and certain processes are as well given opportune time to get better with such recurrence. Growth can be found in organizational routines and activities that constitute repetitive learning. These mundane activities are essential elements that enable us to spot improvements that can be made. Repetition likewise makes masters in the fields. Extension workers, farmers, and lecturers cannot become experts without reiteration or mastering their crafts by heart.
Growth as emptying. “To open the next century, we shall go through the rituals of closing.” At its current state, the extension system is slowly heading away from the mere conduct of trainings into shifting towards ladderized programs whereby empowered clients are able to sustain themselves and their communities. To achieve this visualized greater impact somehow entails to first become fully empty. According to Hillman, patterns emerge and grow out of the empty. He posed that the void and hollow space allows us to momentarily think. To stop and rest before jumping in yet another phase is a start of another beginning. This idea of growth and bracing up the emptiness may have been undertaken not by the whole ATI workforce yet but first by the key players in extension. With the agency’s shift, coming up with plans and budget may have forced them to pause and go into the abyss. Working on a blank page or as Hillman puts it as “focusing on the not-yet” to create new ideas, concepts and innovations that they just recently presented in the cluster planning and budgeting for the upcoming new administration in 2016 was partly an emptying growth process for the chiefs.
Growth in an organization comes in many shapes. And as for the apex agency in extension in the Philippines, it is much on the deepening and intensification kind of growth. It is the kind of growth that genuinely seeks to build dreams and change the lives of those underprivileged in the rural areas and other poverty stricken communities in the regions. Repeatedly, it was inculcated to us by the National Director that “in the end we will not be measured based on the number of trainings that have been conducted but rather on the number of lives we have helped improve, that is how we will be weighed.” How we have made impact in the lives of the many people we trained, and hearing them say that they have become truly successful because of ATI’s help - that for us is the highest form of growth that we can ever attain.
Comparing such deepening growth to the other kind of growth exhibited by the developed world, my one-week stay in a known productive country in Asia has convinced me that technological advancement, money, or power still cannot compete with growth that comes with a sense of humanity.
Indeed they have become very advanced, very disciplined, and are mainly portrayed as innovative and creative individuals. But as the days passed, all I see are the high rise buildings, and people who are always in a hurry. This makes an ordinary Filipino wonder if they have ever tried walking down the streets without rushing, if they do stop for a while and chitchat with people they know but are not very close, or smile at a familiar stranger or acquaintance they might’ve met somewhere but can’t remember when or where. I was thinking of children being robbed off of their childhood as I didn’t see any, not one playing on the grounds. What I sense is the pressure felt by students who were pushed by the government to excel, to be productive, to invent, to be good with science and math.
Somehow, the place seems to be one that has lost its soul as a consequence of how progress was perceived. We can always improve but we don’t have to lose the person inside us, or lose our emotions, the artistry, or the human touch, and connection to other human friends.
Compared to an advanced nation’s growth, Philippines is way way way far behind. But taking a deeper look, it makes one realize that at least we have not lost touch with being human. Progress and growth is not just going up and forward making individuals act more like robots. Growth is looking deep into the country’s soul and more of its people’s soul and humanness.
- Renelle Joy Tabinas, 2015
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