When systems fail, we grow the future

When things around us start to fall apart, it’s easy to feel powerless.

But every time systems fail — when the plans, policies, and promises stop working — it’s also a chance to start again. Not from the top down, but from the ground up. From the soil that feeds us, the people beside us, and the hope that never leaves us.

There’s enough food in the world that no one should go hungry. And yet, hunger is everywhere.

The problem isn’t the planet. It’s the systems we built around food, land, and power — systems that no longer serve the people they were meant to.

The same goes for how we handle energy, climate, and opportunity. These systems were built for another time. We need new ones now.

I’ve said before that we were meant to grow things. Today, I believe we’re meant to grow the future.

When the world feels out of control, our first instinct is to look up — to bigger powers, bigger solutions, bigger promises.

I’m not talking about faith. I’m talking about the systems — governments, corporations, and institutions — that we keep waiting on to fix what’s broken.

But maybe the answer isn’t above us. Maybe it’s right around us, among the people standing on the same ground. The establishment can feel distant, but the community isn’t. That’s what modern bayanihan looks like today: people helping people, sharing what they know, and building things that last.

I’ve met farmers who turn coconut husks into biochar to bring life back to tired soil. I’ve seen NGOs work with Indigenous farmers to set up a talipapa, small community markets where harvests can reach buyers directly.

And now, I’m seeing technology made by people who understand what farmers go through; apps and platforms that let them track what they plant, monitor their yields, and connect straight to the market.

These tools help farmers find their footing, but the real shift starts with mindset. Farmers already hold so much value — their land, their knowledge, their resilience. They just need to see it. 

Farmers are rock stars. They feed us, protect the soil, and carry the future in their hands. The more they recognize their own power, the more they can shape the systems that shape us all.

When I used to hear the word infrastructure, I would think of buildings, roads, bridges, concrete. But I’ve been thinking about it differently now. Infrastructure isn’t just what we build above ground. It’s how we position things so they can do essential work for a long time.

In construction, a job site turns into a school or a clinic. In agriculture, our job sites are fields and farms. Our materials are seeds, saplings, and soil. Our construction workers are farmers.

That’s what I mean by climate infrastructure: arranging living systems so they feed people, cool the air, hold water, and pull carbon from the sky. It’s nature as technology. Food forests are public works you can eat. And this kind of work keeps value where it belongs: with the communities who grow it.

It’s already happening.

In Liliw, Laguna, we’re working with an established coconut farmer, helping them intercrop coffee and moringa between the trees, adding diversity and new life as part of a regenerative system.

When a coconut tree grows, it feeds the land. Its husk becomes biochar that revives the soil. Its shade protects the coffee, while moringa thrives alongside. Each tree becomes part of a living structure that cools, feeds, and heals. 

Farmers are the engineers of this future.

We Filipinos have seen systems fail us — from government offices to global markets that decide the price of what our farmers grow.

But we’ve also seen what happens when we work together: after storms, during pandemics, in moments when we have nothing left but each other. That spirit — that resilience — is how we build again.

The Philippines sits at the heart of the climate crisis, but it can also sit at the heart of the solution.

If we can grow food forests at the scale of hundreds of millions of trees, if we can show that regeneration is a way of life, then we can prove something bigger — that hope isn’t spoken, it’s built.

This isn’t just about climate or food. It’s about belonging.

It’s about remembering that the land beneath our feet is alive — and that our future depends on how we care for it, together. 

When systems fail, we don’t wait for rescue.

We plant. We grow. We rebuild from the soil up.

Because we were meant to grow things. And now, together, we will grow the future. — GMA Integrated News

Read other pieces by Apl.de.Ap:

• We Were Meant to Grow Things
• Food Security is not the Only Reason to Plant Again
• Planting Accountability, Growing Resilience