 Okay, and we are live. Hello everyone, I'd like to welcome you my name is Lydia Hamilton and I'm the director of operations at the Wikimedia Foundation, where I co lead efforts focused on sustainability in partnership with Deb tankers Lee. I'm happy to welcome you all to this conversation. It's a second in a new series that we're working on to close Wikipedia gaps and climate change content and awareness. And I'm going to hand this over to Alex Tinson that will share more and welcome our guests today. Thank you. I'm Alex Tinson. I'm a senior program strategist at the Wikimedia Foundation, and I am often in conversation with our larger Wikimedia community about the role Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects have in filling knowledge gaps about sustainability about climate climate change and I'm really excited about this conversation today because food and agriculture is such an important part of our relationship as humans with the environment with other people, whether through well intended uses of agricultural technology or through kind of thought practices or traditions that don't fully work and like our contemporary human experience. The agriculture and food are so important to both the huge environmental crises that we face, such as deforestation biodiversity loss climate change desertification, but also the solutions to these problems it's about empowering local communities to kind of live within their ecologies to be part of the environment and so having like understanding where a broader public where the everyone in the world can benefit from the knowledge about food and agriculture in a way that's local and contextual and relevant to their lives is really important. And we kind of, this is for for many of us in the environmental movement to this is a pathway in to understanding how we too can advocate for our local ecologies environmental issues etc etc. I'm really excited for our guests today is Louise Moblu is a widely recognized young chef from the Philippines, who has now been for the last few years working in local agriculture and helping both farmers and and the other food communities around the farmers to to adapt to climate and environmental issues. This work had led to a 2018 young champions of the earth or 2019 young champions of the earth award, which really catapulted her into the international space about the environmental crisis and climate change. And so I've been seeing her work around many parts of the environmental movement. And the last few years are, I've been seeing a lot of her work from the last few years and the environmental movement and it's really exciting to kind of think and talk with her as a young leader in the space. I'm also excited to introduce a comedian from the, our Philippines community, who will be talking to her and dialogue. She has been doing outreach and advocacy for the wikimedia movement in the Philippines for several years now and also as an advocate of local food issues through the farm forward network. And so we're really excited that she this conversation will happen. So I will turn it over to Vange and Louise to have this wonderful conversation. Okay, thank you so much, Alex. Good day everyone. My name is Vange Padilla. I'm a wikimedia from the Philippines, and it's an honor to be the interviewee and having this discussion with Louise. Hi Louise, good day to you. It's evening in the Philippines, right? So let us, yeah. So how are you feeling right now? I'm feeling great. I'm really excited to have a very deep conversation about Philippine food systems with like-minded people and hopefully have an audience that kind of can take away a lot of knowledge or maybe skills out of this conversation. Yep, that's why I'm also excited for the same reason that we will be presenting these ideas to like-minded people. So let's get it on with the conversation. Let's delve first on local food because we are both passionate about local food. And your early accolades were more about international and fusion cuisines. So why is it important for you and for the rest of our audience or the community to ground food in local culture? And what did that do for you? Yeah, thanks so much for that question, Vange. And I also want to kind of thank Alex as well for a really kind introduction that kind of is very flattering about my history in food. But I think what the food systems that I'm working on did for me, it isn't really about what it did for me, but how there wasn't enough young people advocating heirloom recipes, local food or who would want to reach back and ground themselves in the Philippine cultures, especially in a time when people tend to compete for Western expertise because it's venerated as higher end. So it was really problematic for me and I felt as a young person with this platform and who had these opportunities and resources available to me. I wanted to utilize that to create a space to explore my own country's history and my food and pay respects to the culture that I harken from and be able to support farming communities while I'm at it because it's a very big part of our food system. Yeah, so I really want to embrace that heirloom food that you spoke earlier because I believe that heirloom recipes and heirloom food from not only the Philippines but from various parts of the world are quite vanishing because a lot of people are into fast food now. And they think that the complexity of preparing those kinds of food from the farm to the table is really challenging. So when you think about local food and those that you mentioned earlier, what kinds of knowledge gap? Because there's always a knowledge gap between young people and the farmers or the local communities and what do you think is getting lost and what is important for the community and how can we balance it? Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of questions but going back to the part where things getting lost, one of the most urgent things getting lost is indigenous and ancestral knowledge and how things are farmed or grown or taken care of or cooked, especially in rural areas. There are very basic recipes from local cuisines that people are forgetting in favor of knowing how to make things like fried chicken and spaghetti, which are staples in any Filipino household, but it's not our identity in our food. And people are also forgetting how to grow things and are favoring to buy them from a supermarket. And camps so we're losing indigenous knowledge and cooking techniques and even ways to grow ingredients here that youth no longer see as relevant and that's quite problematic because we're losing very basic knowledge that was passed on from generation to generation but isn't recorded. And there's also the other side of that where it's not just youth but in the strive for innovation and modernization, people are also shirking older ways and techniques in favor of new products like fertilizers and pesticides. And, you know, all these ancestral knowledge are being willingly abandoned in the belief that it's outdated. Not realizing that people are abandoning these traditions in favor of more unsustainable practices, which we're seeing quite more predominantly with how the markets are being driven. And so we lose that knowledge, we lose its value, which is why documenting these things are so important in the preservation of our culture. And in the transfer of knowledge as well to younger and future generations who might eventually, I hope, come to understand its value in our societies. Yep. And speaking of documenting that ancestral knowledge, last December, may I just share with you that we started these year-lum recipe projects where in some members of the young individuals from Northern Duzon and from Bicol, most of them are women, we did a cooking demo for year-lum recipes, one of them snacks and a meal. And we put it, we put the content or we created the articles in wiki books along with the recipes and then we uploaded the videos and photos on wiki media comments. So we think that it's a small step towards documenting those treasures that are slowly not being noticed in favor of what you said about modernization and innovation and the convenience of getting fast food or the food that is being highly marketed in the media. So yeah, we had a great time and we hope that that project will still be able to see light of day, not only in our region but also in other parts of the Philippines. And we are planning to network with a group called Slow Food Community in the Philippines to be able to get more of the local ingredients or indigenous ingredients and how to cook them for others to see and watch and prepare. So now let's go to the food system approach. Why did you turn from working as a chef towards this more integrated, I like the word integrated farm to table approach because it is all encompassing and it's inclusive so I wanted to know, yeah, from your chef, from your being a chef to farmer and entrepreneur. Yeah, I mean the work that you're already doing is fantastic in documenting these things. And in the same principle, food has always been my passion. I love and adore food and cooking and ingredients. And, you know, being ignorant to the sources of the ingredients where my components come from that constitute my dishes. You know that ignorance doesn't do my cooking any justice if I don't appreciate where those ingredients come from and who had grown it. So it's really an intrinsic factor into loving food and cooking that you have to be able to understand the whole food system and mechanism that brings our food to our tables. And, you know, putting out a bit of statistics, our world is predicted to require 70% more food by 2050 while conversely, in less than 60 years, we have less than 60 years of harvest left according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. And that's not to mention as well the current age of farmers in the Philippines at 57 years old, which means we could suffer a food insecurity in the next 15 years. And all of these statistics mean that there's such a huge divide in our food industry between consumers and producers and young people play a huge role in bridging that gap and making that happen. So, through these dinners and evocacies that I do, you know, as being a chef and also connecting it to farm to table cuisine and, you know, bringing farmers to the forefront of these recipes and pop up dinners. I think it's one way to bridge that gap. And that was kind of my goal when I set out to do this because I didn't want to be just another person who is cooking and not realizing that it's contributing to all of these issues. I wanted to make sure that as I was doing these pop up dinners and all of these work that I'm currently doing, it's kind of helping transform our communities and food systems. Yeah, if I understood it right, I think you completed the story of the food from the farm to the table. So, because some stories of the food we only see through the picture and through aesthetics, but the whole picture from farming from the farmers and the involvement of all other the key players in preparation for the food is also missing. That is why with this advocacy that you're doing, I think you're completing a picture, the picture and presenting a whole new approach in our food culture. So let's start with a cocoa project, your baby project. And why do you think that cocoa is important to that system? And what makes cocoa different from other local crops? Yeah, I would love to talk about the cocoa project because what we do is we try to equip farmers with the training and knowledge and resources. So it's not just about cocoa. It's one aspect of it, but it's kind of one of the things that I advocate very closely is integrated landscapes approaches. And we center on cocoa because from an entrepreneurial standpoint, right? It's an heirloom crop that already exists in my region. And it's already integrated within our landscapes and people have underutilized it. And there is a deficit in cocoa worldwide. There's a global deficit of about 100,000 tons. And in the market, there's a very short market that wants to purchase cocoa, but it's a matter of bridging farmers and producers to the people who are actually purchasing that. And also, there's, there's basic factors that people need to assess before planting something, whether it's suited to your ecosystem and environment, and cocoa happens to be one of those crops. So as a country that's in this very small belt where cocoa can grow, that was our focus in, you know, making sure that farmers would make a good income and have high productivity and good yields and be able to plant something that suited our environment and was already integrated into our landscapes. But it doesn't end there. It's also the techniques and practices that we institute that lead farmers to look to farm more sustainably and equitably through diversifying their crops and planting agroforests because it's not just about, you know, planting or growing cocoa. It's about changing the system of how we approach food systems and empowering farmers to be able to have more skills and to be equipped to create these agroforests and be part of the green recovery. Yeah, the Philippines is so lucky to have you with your views like that. And, but I know that you start, you started not easy. And now let's go to the challenges. Let's talk about the challenges of the cocoa project because you said that it's not only the cocoa but other crops, which is we also in the Philippines we also are in a shortage of coffee beans. But in some parts of the world, cocoa is very challenging for small farmers or the small holders and it's creating a poor labor practice or by putting farmers under economic control of middlemen, which also happens all over the world. How do you navigate the balance? How do you balance between trying to support farmers economically and the sometimes challenging landscape around these economically or the commodity crops? Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, many world systems are still broken and exploit vulnerable groups for the sake of profit. It's kind of rampant everywhere, which is really unfortunate and we see peace and security issues and human rights violations in agriculture, which is the case. Considering farmers are very vulnerable for quality issues, which is why it's more important to rethink these systems, especially when the pre-existing systems are exploitative to these communities who can't take that kind of strain. So of course, a system like this takes time and with the cocoa project, we won't see satisfying and immediate results immediately because it will become apparent in the next five or 10 years because what we're trying to institute is a food revolution, a transformative system that benefits our farmers. And that's not easy, especially in a time when it's kind of monopolized by people who are in these situations. So however, we are seeing positive impacts of our farming practices already in the lives of farmers and in our ecosystems. So as short term as the past four years, we're starting to see improvements in our moisture tension and soil fertility. We're starting to see a better forest canopy starting to stitch itself together. And it's these kind of seeds that we're planting for systemic change in the long term. So right now, of course, it's not going to look absolutely like, wow, she changed the world overnight. It's going to be changing the world step by step over the past over the next five to 10 years. But with the cocoa project, we're trying to make sure that farmers themselves are also equipped with knowledge, resources, and that they can be agents of change because, you know, a lot of these systems look to farmers as a means to an end. But we want to make sure that farmers are equipped to have their own entrepreneurial mindset. They have their own value. They know how important they are to our ecosystems and our economy. Yeah, what you said about the entrepreneurial mindset of farmers is very important. And that should be in the educational system for all the young farmers out there and their families or the older farmers and their families. Because if they cease to have that entrepreneurial mindset, then their mindset would be just to farm, just to have food on the table. And that's it. That's why maybe agriculture is not sexy industry for young people, right, because of a different mindset that we go up on. So another challenge is the demand of agricultural practices as driven by, you know, corporations, international trade and science, then by organizations in the global market. So because you were raised in the UK and now you are in the Philippines, thank God for being in the Philippines. You have navigated this complexity. Do you encounter these challenges now in your context? I mean, yes, I definitely see these challenges day to day. And, you know, in fact, we see the impact of international standards and, you know, all these, these corporations on farming trends in the Philippines. We see, and, you know, one of the things that our project is trying to do is educate and equip local growers and producers on the pros and cons of all of these things and deals and policies and practices that are being encouraged. And ensuring that our farmers are empowered to have their own sense of autonomy and agency in the system so that they're informed of the impact of what's being asked of them or what they choose to do. Because, of course, sometimes people will come to farms here and tell them, oh, you should be using these practices. And, you know, it's not, it's not tailored fit to our landscapes and economy and how the systems work here. But on the other hand, we also have to know that consumer decisions also inform and drive the back end production in the same way that production is what is integral so consumers can have these resources. So on one hand, we also have to drive demand for good, sustainably sourced and ethical produce as much as we encourage practices and techniques on the back end of farming. But we also need in a sense, a better policy requirements that ensure security for our farmers and protect the communities that rely on these systems because it requires a variety of factors to really navigate the situation and these issues. And the plus of the work that I'm doing is that I'm in a position to both inform the back end and influence our producers, but also influence and spread awareness to consumers so that they know what's going on in our food systems, which is why, you know, it was it was very an integral that I was chef first because now I understand both the back end and the front end and how consumers react to producers and how producers need to react to consumers. And very recently, I was also able to contribute to policy guidances and reports that will inevitably dictate and transform these systems, which is why it's important to have diverse representation in these kinds of discussions and, you know, hear the voices of people who are affected who are most kind of, you know, impacted by all of these things that are going on, so that we can actually tackle these issues in a way that's comprehensive and meaningful in the systems that the world operates. So it's, it's first and foremost, fixing the way that consumers react to producers. And on the other hand, it's policies and making sure that the people who are making these policies are informed by the people affected by those policies. And then it's also changing behavior towards agriculture and making sure that farmers aren't farming just because but they're farming with purpose. Yeah, I think you are a complete package for all the things that you mentioned in educating the consumers to really patronize sustainable local products. And it goes a long way. So when the consumers are educated about choosing sustainable food choices, and it elevates the pride of farmers, and it boosts their morals. And it also influences the policymakers, right? So the government can also, or other organizations that can influence the policy development and all of those things can do better, do their jobs better. So thankful, thankful that you are a complete package. Now we go to the gaps in representation and community around, you know, food and agricultural knowledge because as part of educating the consumers and the rest of the population, you're a very young woman, you started very young as a chef, and you are involved in the food space, of course not only the Philippines, but also on the international arena. And you are now residing and working with the farmers here who are old, older, they're often men, and then young people are usually interacting with food through, you know, fast food and not agriculture. So how is it different being young, a young person who works in the space, and what were the challenges that you encountered and how did you overcome them? Yeah, there's a lot of challenges as a young woman in the Philippine agricultural space. I mean, to start with the Philippines has many, many deeply rooted cultural stigmas surrounding, you know, agriculture and farmers and this whole industry of food production and it impacts people's perceptions about what a farmer is supposed to be. They have a visual image of, oh, a farmer looks like this and there's a very specific image, unfortunately, that's being perpetuated. And you see me and the complete opposite of that image. I'm this young girl with curly hair who goes to the farm. I have makeup on because I love wearing makeup regardless of the context or situation. I have colorful Wellington boots. I have pink prunishiers and I match my sun hat to the outfit that I wear to the farms. So I'm kind of like an Elle Woods in the agricultural space. And so farmers and, you know, even, you know, stakeholders, they would look at me and, you know, they're not sure how to take me seriously or they're not sure how to react to someone who behaves that way in a farming and food industry, which is, it's very funny to have to see it. But it's a challenge too as well. I mean, in terms of how people perceive farmers and how people react to that. It starts at the school level, as you mentioned earlier in our conversation, that schoolchildren are taught in schools with languages that are derogatory towards agriculture and agricultural communities. I'm sure, Vange, and if we have Filipino viewers, you are very familiar with the term, if you don't know how to study well, you will be able to speak English. Exactly. In English, that means if you don't study well, you're going to be picked up in a water spinach field or a farm. Yeah. There's another term called like, mga ngamoteka, which is a figure of speech that says if, you know, you'll grow sweet potatoes with the implication that it's the worst thing you could be because you're not well informed or you don't work hard. Now, this is the language along with many cultural factors that people teach that perpetuates the idea that farming equates to failure and poverty. And it's problematic on my end, since I want to change the systems that we have in agriculture so that people will start to appreciate our food systems. Even while I live in a culture that doesn't appreciate the people that are behind these food systems. Now, as a young person in this industry, one of my goals really in aims that I'm currently working on is to disassemble the stigmas and change people's perception of the farming industry. So when I face people and they say, I don't believe that you're a farmer, I would say, why, what is your perception of who a farmer should be? Because in reality, the representation of agriculture is very limited to, you know, a very specific group of people who are vulnerable or the way that they are presented is just terrible and it shouldn't be that way. So that what I'm doing involves, you know, teaching the next generation that farming is cool and also empowering the older generation to change their perceptions and pass their knowledge to their children because they don't want to pass that knowledge. And those are those are some of the challenges that I face because people are quite, you know, boxed in by these perceptions and stigmas. But beyond that, you know, before we make people think, Oh, farming is cool and trendy and fun. We also need to begin to, you know, the work that weaves environmental stewardship into agriculture because as long as agriculture is unsustainable, we can't tell people that it's cool. So that's, that's kind of the, the point, it's a catch 22 but there are, there is a way around it and that's the work that we're doing. But that's a really systemic and social in terms of how we have to approach these challenges. Yeah, I like the fact that you farm with the makeup. So I think that alone is cool seeing somebody who is farming with the makeup, not necessarily with the curly hair but the very young woman regardless of race. Or nationality. I think it makes it really cool because makeup in others perception does not belong to a farm, but why not, right? Why not? We shouldn't be absent in ideas and feel empowered to do something like that and I'm really happy that slowly more young people are influenced by that because I show up in rice fields with pink pruning shears, like sky blue wellingtons and salacot, which is basically. Yeah, salacot, yeah. Yeah, and and people are kind of like, hang on, that's really fashionable. And I said, yeah, because I'm keeping these things into our, you know, these cultural things into modern things and whatever makes me feel good about it. Yeah, I think Filipinos are also slowly adapting that agriculture is cool kind of mindset because during the pandemic. So everyone wanted to be self sufficient because of our restrictions in travel. And I think every household in the Philippines or some other parts of the world put up their own household garden planting vegetables or whatever seeds they may find here or somewhere else to grow their own food, which is one, I think in my opinion is one of the first steps towards agriculture is cool kind of mindset. So, yeah, my next question is if we are going to work with farmers, of course, one of the stigmas that you said earlier is also, you know, that kind of perception that farmers are uncool, they're poor, and they are into that kind of non attractive industry. But there is also one aspect that we should look upon, which is like you and dealing with farmers who are speaking local language. So maybe you with the makeup and it's a lot is kind of cool that is bearable for others. And yeah, it's exciting but how about communication, how did you and your organization navigate this and what did you discover as an ideal for this gap. Yeah, because there are a lot of knowledge gaps in terms of agricultural knowledge right it's, it's, it's kind of problematic that many best practices are just communicated in English. Meanwhile, they don't reach our farmers because they only speak in regional dialect, and we need to get more work put into translating climate knowledge regenerative agricultural knowledge, as well as policies and mandates in, you know, that's around these communities into a regional language. So that's one of the things that's missing. And that's one of the things I tried to communicate to our farmers and communities, so that we can promote kind of a true inclusive, you know, development space and resources accessible to the people who actually really really need it. And you know, we have another trouble is implementing it so that we give it justice, because of course it's one thing to translate it literally but it's another thing to translate it so they understand the depth and urgency of these policies. So one of the things that we do is, you know, trying to get better materials to farmers and make sure that they have that knowledge and teaching it to them, especially information surrounding climate change environmentalism and how that interrelates to agriculture farming and local community level changes and developments, but also through land policies and climate resiliency and disaster preparedness. One of the things that we do to navigate that is coordinating with the local government because they're very, at least in my region they're very active and they're very close to the farming communities. And you know, it's, it's, you know, especially in the province it's more of a face to face kind of thing where you have to speak to community members and community leaders personally to understand the gravity and interconnectedness of all this work and in a way that they understand through regional languages and kind of a qualitative examples and empirical examples that people can kind of relate to in a conversational sense because people aren't going to read both texts or they're not going to just, you know, sit down and and take a class on it. They want to kind of get the knowledge in the most convenient way possible. And that's really through, you know, community interacting with your community and speaking with them directly. Yeah, I think one of the factors also that we can do is this is where the young people come in, we're in not only translating knowledge for the farmers but also influencing the families of farmers and to understand the global implication of all of those things all together and integrate them in such a communication tool that they can understand whether in depth or whether it has been local or the things that local governments do. And one of the solutions I also see is that the Department of Agriculture, not only the local government is also having this farmer school on air. We're in, yeah, so we're in they educate the farmers and their families to really maximize, maximize farming, not only in the farm but also in their yard. And it's usually a radio program or a television program or a tele radio program. And I think that is one of the things that we can maximize in farming forward. So if some of the young people don't think that agriculture is sexy, maybe they can help in translating the knowledge and making other people understand. So that would be their contribution, because if we don't help the farmers and we don't value our agricultural industry, then we cannot survive as a nation. We cannot depend on fast food forever and you know our imports in the Philippines are staggering and it's ironic because our country, although it's an archipelago is so rich in natural resources, and I can't find enough reason why we have to import our food. So adding on to that, it's a really important point of how young people can contribute because young people are very, you know, they think of helping agriculture, but they see the straightforward farming jobs but you can help in design in translation in creating content that matters because I've been helping with the Department of Agriculture and their Agricultural Training Institute, but there are kind of jobs that young people need to fill like videography, cinematography and creating those content for people to kind of see what's going on on the ground and also for farmers to have a visual of the vision that we want to implement. So that's one of the things that young people can help out without being a farmer themselves. There's a lot of roles to fill. Yeah, you're right about it and I'm more excited about adding some project or an activity for the Farm Forward Network. And my other question is more broadly, where do you think communication of sustainability and climate change are breaking down as you translate between the local and international and what kind of role could a platform like Wikipedia, because we start using Wikipedia as a platform for communication tool and yeah, and how do we address it using Wikipedia? I mean there's so many ways. I think in terms of knowledge, it's more on the availability of local languages and cultural perceptions of environmental jobs as we just mentioned. We usually see derogatory language used when people refer to farmers or green sustainable jobs primarily because of the limited career options that people perceive. As I mentioned, there are many roles to fill in agricultural and as well as knowledge that the way we communicate knowledge is also very important. So people for example think provincial or provincial immediately refers to some remote peoples or people who lack education or a sense of civilization because of the way it's used in the Tagalog or Bicolana language or Magsasa as well in how it's communicated online. It's just the image of a stereotypical farmer limited to conventional farming jobs that require someone to be out in the sun and planting rice without providing the diversity or variety of examples of farmers who do reside in the Philippines and are successful. So not to mention I actually in terms of how Wikipedia can help, I had a look at the Bicol Wikipedia page and you know on climate change and I know that that's one of the huge gaps in regional places. So I looked over the Bicol climate change Wikipedia page and I looked at the English climate change and I noticed that the Bicol Wikipedia page does not discuss climate change in depth in a way that is meaningful, especially in a region where this language is spoken where people are most influenced by climate change and they don't have that kind of resource to understand why it's important to them and they don't have the impacts and examples that you see in the English Wikipedia page. So you know they're prone to these severe effects but they don't realize it's because of climate change and it's not covered in the local regional language. So it's not as, it's not just you know it's making it more comprehensive this content and explaining it meaningfully in that language and not to mention right there's no particular word for sustainability in Bicolano or Tagalog. Exactly, yeah. So you know if you think about the most, the closest word to sustainability it would be something like pangmatagalan or pangpanatili which basically means like long wearing or long lasting but it doesn't mean intrinsically the essence of the word and the same goes for regenerative agriculture where we're trying to you know restore landscapes. People can't make that connection because the language doesn't exist or there's no good explanation of that language that exists in our regional languages in Tagalog, Bicolano or what have you. So that's another thing that I think needs to be covered especially in Wikipedia pages or mentioned at least if there's a sustainability page for in Tagalog or Bicolano it has to kind of be discussed that there is no particular word but here's the essence of it. So first and foremost it's expanding the knowledge available in regional languages and have language specialists like yourself look at these relevant and emerging issues and ensure that the regional pages cover as comprehensively as the English Wikipedia pages. And on the other hand I think that you know communicating that this knowledge exists and is accessible to these rural communities is important. You know a lot of people would think that knowledge is something that you have to pay for you have to go to school for but now it's it's very it's it's in a very democratic setting where it's at the tip of everyone's fingers and people don't realize this information is available online and you can download it offline if you're an educator and you want to bring it to some rural community that you're teaching this knowledge is free and it's right there and many people don't understand that or if they just simply don't know and people need to tell them. And thirdly it's also looking at concrete and real examples of people in real life who are who are doing these things this kind of work and linking that information to these Wikipedia pages whether it's the regional language or or in the English Wikipedia pages it's showing those examples within those regions and localized kind of role models so to speak which I know has already is already being done at the moment I had a conversation with Alex before and he'd show me examples of communities that were covered in But I think that it's it's important to start expanding that knowledge in urgent places with vulnerable groups to have those examples so that they kind of understand the people and the real human face behind the numbers and the metrics that we see on pages behind the text there's real people and it's just really driving that work like that work home and trying to protect them even more. Yep. So that's very interesting and a lot of countries are Wikimedia Wikipedia organizations and especially in other countries have advanced already in creating content for their local community on sustainability and yeah and food or agriculture. In fact early this morning I was told that there is a contest for Wiki Loves food and somebody's asking me if we could do the same for the Philippines especially on earloom recipes so I was yeah I was I was telling the other Wikimedia that I would introduce it to you and perhaps we could help each other to raise awareness on these particular earloom recipes and local food so we can do something about you know enticing and encouraging the young people to patronize our local resources and of course learn about our ancient traditions and the recipes that were being handed by our generations especially I would like to relate the lowly muscle soup in your blog I was really captivated by that because I love muscle soup and I can't accept the fact that people some people would look down upon it Right. To choose food we should always think about the nutrition that it gives us and we should be thankful for all these blessings that we don't need to you know grow and cultivate the muscles they grow by themselves or just harvest them and we have no right to look down upon it because that is given to us by nature so I would connect with you with Wikilabs food project and I would tell you more about it and I would get your insights about it so we can start yeah we can start something from my region to your region and perhaps you can help each other to really get more people especially the young ones to be aware more aware of our local resources to sustain our economy and sustain our climate and whatever resources that we have in the Philippines so do you have any parting shots or message from for the people the young people in the Philippines only here but also across other parts of the globe who might be able to watch this particular broadcast before we open the floor for audience questions from the audience I mean definitely thank you so much fans and I really look forward to that project it's really exciting and you know talking about a parting word to young people watching I think it's time to recognize our responsibility as stewards to nature and the responsibility to build the future because I think I always say to people you know we build the world that we deserve we're the ones who create the world that we think we deserve and if that world is going to be green and have good food and equitable then that would be amazing regardless of who you are where you are it's important to be steward to our nature and environment and understand our role in the vast web of how things work and in the same way when Wikipedia if you can easily you know contribute your knowledge or your skills to do something to build that better world then all the better yep thank you so much Louise and now we are open to some of the questions that are Alex yeah so I think a lot of these questions are you kind of already talked about that I'm seeing so far in the YouTube channel there was a question about like articles like the Louise you mentioned the conversation you and I had about looking at the images on these articles and like making sure that they're locally relevant I'm wondering why is it so important for like pictures of local farmers or farmers from different geographies or cultural context to be on like the farmer page for example why is it so important that the local image or context or people is being represented when we have these like broad global topics I mean you know Wikipedia is a huge source of knowledge for so many people across the world and if they don't understand something the first thing they would do is look it up and find a Wikipedia page about it and scroll down and that's their first impression of it and you know if you don't see a concrete example of farmers then that would limit your world view or your perception of what they are and who they are and it's also the fact that beyond the words and beyond those metrics these are human beings who have important value in our communities and ecosystems and it's important that they're well represented and that there's role models for them in a way or if not just role models and it's highlighting the situation and making sure that it's known to the world that this is what these people are experiencing or suffering and this is you know it's up to you how you can kind of bridge that gap and solve it so it's it's it's really important to fill those visual images and perceptions of you know these regional farmers and regional images of these communities so that people have a meaningful idea of what they are what they constitute and what can be done as well it's up to them from there once they're informed and have the proper information and visual ideas how they can move forward to do something about it Deb have we seen any other questions so far coming in through the YouTube or the zoom not sure YouTube other than a couple basically you know they're they're really happy that you're doing this talk and such on the zoom though we did have the question from second that did talk about how do you how does your project support farmers and increasing their productivity and how is it also helping them you know promote good practices and then educate them on those good practices kind of touch on a little bit earlier but wanted to see if you wanted to expand on that Oh yeah definitely I mean with what we're doing we're teaching on regenerative farming practices and creating a by diverse ecosystem that would support growing you know ingredients and harvest and what kind of replenish our soil so I did mention that in as little as 60 years according to the reports from the United Nations that we only have about less than 100 harvest left because of soil degradation and one of the solutions to that is by diverse farming techniques like regenerative agriculture and that's the way we're kind of trying to preserve that and within our communities where before our soil is degraded we want to make sure that we can start replenishing it with new nutrients you know restoring the ecosystems and biodiversity within those areas so that's one of the things that we're trying to encourage and you know part of it is also traditional knowledge already this is how we used to farm back when farming was disfarming and food was just food it was already how it used to be but it's restoring those ideas and you know teaching people about the value of traditional indigenous knowledge and merging and marrying it with newer innovations in these spheres and how it's valuable so for example what we do is we make our own pesticides we make our own fertilizers that are all just localized within our regions and our farmers make it themselves one of my team specializes in making these foliar sprays out of food waste and it's maximizing the resources we have already to create a self-sufficient system and it's also helping farmers save money because you know they're encouraged to spend money on fertilizers and pesticides and insecticides and in reality they can easily make it themselves and my region is known for growing chilies and we use those chilies to make pesticides because they grow so abundantly here and it's also kind of making sure that farmers value their knowledge as well I mean Vance you would probably know this but if you go to a rice field and it's time to kind of blow away the rice the farmers would whistle a certain tune and for some reason the wind will come and science can't explain that and modern day technology can't explain that but it happens it's like it's some kind of magic they will whistle a certain tone a certain tune and absolutely within five minutes it'll get windy and it's this kind of knowledge what sorcery is that it's like sorcery no one knows why and how it just happens and you know it's restoring that dignity to farmers and making sure that they continue those practices and they don't kind of shirk it off because no one can explain it no it's important ancestral knowledge that we have to maintain and same with chili pesticides it used to be common knowledge and now it's considered some modern innovation and it's in reality it's been practiced for years people have just started telling them oh you shouldn't do that because it's not as effective as ex-brand of pesticides so it's really a matter of restoring old knowledge and you know marrying it with new knowledge and teaching people about the value of the alchemy of air soil and water so that they can easily cherish that and be able to kind of make informed decisions that won't cause degradation towards soils and our agroforests yeah well and like based on the conversation we had previously I understand your approach to regenerative farming is also about resilience right in the face of like climate change and monsoons can you speak to that a little bit more just kind of fill in that gap between like it's not just restoring the soil but actually preserving it and kind of making it more resilient for our future yeah I mean here in the Philippines we suffer we are the most vulnerable country to climate related hazards and it's a concern to farmers who are reliant on good weather conditions to have a good livelihood so one of the things we do is through building these agroforests we're also creating windbreakers for the communities by the time the typhoon comes the effects won't be as severe it's also teaching them about pruning so that the wind can move through the trees and leaves so that it doesn't kind of cut it down and it's also understanding like for example cocoa which we're using isn't too short like rice that it gets flooded out it isn't too tall like coconuts that it gets cut down by heavy winds it's just the right height it's about person a regular person's height so that it's just it's much sturdier and has a good root system and of course it's productive it makes income so that's that's one of the things the resilience is very important to cultivate within our farmers and you know it's integrating it into our landscapes so that by the time the storms come the damage will be less severe of course we can't avoid damage in the last year we had three typhoons that hit my region specifically there were much more in different regions but three major typhoons too which were super typhoons that reached 300 km per hour winds and you can't there's no way there's no avoiding that because it's nature so it's a matter of empowering farmers and teaching them to be ready as much as they can and once those those things hit it's rebuilding and replenishing our resources as quickly as possible in the most effective way we can so after we were hit by typhoon Ghani and Ulysses last year what we did was we gathered all of the debris and detritus from the storms and we turned that into fertilizers and mulch for our farms so that we can continue to grow short term crops that we could integrate into our landscapes so we wouldn't suffer food insecurity or peace and security issues after the storm because everyone would have food and would be well fed I have one question more because I forgot to ask this earlier what's next for the Kakao project? I'm more excited about the chocolate project if there would be and what are your plans about it? I mean our plan with the Kakao project is well right now I'm doing research and development for chocolate products it's not just chocolates and hot chocolates and cocoa powders we're also making cocoa vinegar out of out of the left over kind of primary juice the byproducts right the byproducts and making fabrics out of the leaves but it's also teaching farmers and kind of creating these landscapes in our area that are more of an art form for example I go I travel a lot and I love visiting wine regions like Napa Valley, Hunter Valley and you see how they don't view agriculture as you know farming and agriculture instead it's an art form they talk about you know vintages and things that are made in certain you know certain terroir and certain weather conditions and it's teaching farmers those important values and equipping them to kind of build that kind of a chocolate region so to speak here in the Philippines so that one day they won't need my project because they can they can they can accomplish everything on their own which is really I really look forward to a day when we actually get to do that and you get to experience it and have these chocolate tours maybe and people making their own products so it's kind of localizing all of what we've been doing instead of for example exporting it we can actually make it here and it would be a destination for people to try out and we can make a Philippine brand for chocolates although it already exists but yeah and making it into an art form and not just farming well that's sort of a new or innovative idea into the chocolate industry in the Philippines Alex? Yeah there's one more question in the YouTube about so so Louise like the young champions of the earth award kind of pulled you up into this international conversation space and you're already there but like maybe even more visible I'm wondering what do other kind of youth activists like yourself need for visibility like that and like how can something like Wikipedia play a role and in seeing you know these youth or women or leaders or kind of sustainability innovations for the world Yeah I mean thank you for that question for me I was very fortunate that the United Nations had recognized what we were doing and kind of helped catapult that and improved our communications in terms of how we brought our message out into the world and communicated it to different audiences that was extremely vital so I think in terms of other youth activists being able to do that number one is of course covering youth activists in far flung areas like the Philippines or different places who are doing amazing work but aren't communicating that as efficiently I think you know being able to cover their work on Wikipedia pages would be absolutely fantastic or at least you know have photographs of it and another thing is the resources available on Wikipedia are brilliant I have to be very honest that I use it a lot in the research phases of what we were doing looking into aerial loom crops that worked and in university as well studying you know agricultural practices in the Philippines and you know being able to get that information and then bring it on the ground and interview people who are actually doing it it's just kind of making that knowledge resource more readily available and you know teaching young people how to use it in a way that is meaningful in a way that they can use it to improve their communications especially young activists so it's really covering their stories and in a way that gives justice to what they're doing and making sure that people are equally represented not just young activists right but the people that they're seeking to help those communities indigenous people ancestral lands and people who are experiencing the brunt of the climate crisis and being able to cover those stories efficiently and well I think that's really important especially now that we're trying to improve the knowledge that we have on climate and sustainability and agriculture I think that's a vital piece that needs to kind of be extended upon further Thank you so much that was wonderful. I think Deb we're approaching we're right at time right This was a wonderful conversation I am entirely motivated to keep doing what we've been doing and do even more and I hope we can share this conversation further with more audiences and networks and you know everyone who's in the chat seems to have been really excited by this so thank you so much and if you're interested in learning how to edit or contribute to these topics. We have a lightweight editathon happening tomorrow and over the weekend focused on agriculture and climate, but also the Wikimedia Foundation is partnering with UN human rights for a wiki for human rights campaign from April 15 to May 15 focused on the right to a healthy environment, which is an excellent opportunity to connect climate change and environmental change and environmental adaptation issues with the communities most affected. So please, please join us for those conversations and thank you so much any last words Louise and Vange before we close out. Maybe I'll be the first one to say thank you everyone for joining us today. It's really a full packed, very educational discussion, and I'm very proud of myself for being in here just in this room and talking to Louise and asking her about questions that really are very important only in the Philippine setting but also in other parts of the world, especially on farming, slow food and sustainability topics. So thank you so much and I hope we could do this once again because there are a lot of sub topics from the topics that we covered today, and we think we need more of Louise's wisdom and experience in terms of these. Thank you so much. Thank you Vange and thank you as well to the whole Wikipedia team for setting this up and creating this space for lively and meaningful discussion. It really means a lot. And I mean to the audiences, thank you for tuning in and I hope you learned something very well from this and can walk away with that knowledge because in the end we live in a very complicated, complex, interconnected world. And it's somewhat terrible sometimes, somewhat fantastic, but go out there and be the person that makes the world a little bit better and that could be through a Wikipedia editathon or through filling these knowledge gaps that we're just discussing and doing your part to actually make the world just that much better. Thank you so much. And I hope everyone has a wonderful evening, day, morning, afternoon, wherever it is, whatever you are in the world. And I hope you tune in for our future events.