PH is a member of the World Trade Organization, WTO, and we have to follow the rules, or we are out of world trade! It is as simple as that. Following WTO, we had to pass the Rice Tariffication Law, RTL, whether we liked it or not.
Farmer Leaders: If you are thinking only of rice, you are out of this world!
"Rice, Free Trade And Trade Wars" is today's Manila Times column of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie[1]. He points to the ongoing US-China trade war, but PH cannot afford any trade war, can we? Ah, Manong Willie says:
Free trade could also be the key to a country's progress,
if we strive to export more products.
if we strive to export more products.
As of now, we are thinking only of rice, and how the prices of unmilled and milled rice have fallen to desperate levels, brought about by rice importation as allowed and encouraged by the RTL. Now we look at the RTL as the Enemy of the Rice People. But in fact, as Pogo says:
We have seen the enemy, and it is US!
Not the United States, not China, not Russia – we Filipinos! Us! I blame it on our farmer leaders, whoever they are, as they think and talk only of rice, rice, rice.
See image above:Our farmers & their leaders do not think of farming as business, of other crops, partnerships – they think only of politics – they do not think distribution, access, corporate, borders, storage, investing. They do not think cooperation!
I quote again Manong Willie: "Free trade could also be the key to a country's progress, if we strive to export more products." We do not need food self-sufficiency; what we need is food security. We can import the rest of the rice we need, but we need to export some farm products as sources of funds: banana, cacao, coconut, coffee etc.
How much was our exports of finished products to 5 Asean member-countries Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam in 2018? US$10.70 billion!
Within the Asean, says Manong Willie, we are already exporting raw or processed rubber, tobacco & substitutes, cereal & flour preparations, sugar, fruits & nuts, dairy products, and animal & vegetable fats. Those exports come not from excess production but from entrepreneurial minds.
Our farmer leaders have always been complaining about farmers not owning the land they cultivate – with the assumption that they will work harder and better if they were landowners. No! That is simplistic thinking.
What our farmer leaders can do now is convince their followers to take advantage of the PH government's complete assistance package and become productive farmers and exemplary citizens, if uneducated.
In the meantime, Manong Willie quotes a NEDA study prescription for a rosy future of PH Agriculture:
The study notes the importance of schemes like land consolidation, cooperative farming, and machinery pooling systems that afford economies of scale and synergies to make the most out of agricultural resources while democratizing productivity gains.
Those gains will be the gains for all!@517
[1] https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/11/21/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/rice-free-trade-and-trade-wars/657458/
No comments:
Post a Comment