PH Agriculture Quandary – What Can We Do About Those Unmindful Farmers & Their Robot Leaders, Greedy Middlemen, Lazy Journalists, And Ignorant Lawmakers?

Filipino farmers keep on farming essentially the way they have been doing from 50 years ago – when I was still studying at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, UP Los Baños, for my BSA major in Ag Education. They have not learned much more.

So, Filipino farmers have the highest Asian cost of production of rice, P12/kilo; compared to Vietnam, P6/kilo. The Filipinos have the #1 agricultural university in Southeast Asia, UP Los Baños, but the Vietnamese must know something we Filipinos don’t! Sabi nga ni President Marcos, “Nakakahiya!” As President Marcos put it, “Ain’t that a shame!”

Average Filipino farmers have a high cost of rice production because they buy inputs borrowing from usurers. I know they also over-apply fertilizers and pesticides. Their rationale? “Just to make sure.” Mostly they practice calendared spraying and calendared fertilizing – it’s easier to remember. It’s not lack of science that is their problem – it’s ignoring limits to science;

Loudmouth farmer leaders keep on blaming the Rice Tariffication Law, RTL, or unscrupulous merchants, or imagined corruption at the Department of Agriculture, DA. Each one acts like a robot; that’s all that they do: Blaming;
(robot image[1] from fistful of talent)

Profit-minded merchants blame the market even if they know they are the market;

Lazy aggie journalists keep off the grass when it comes to investigating the ins-and-outs of farming, commerce and gross domestic prosperity. I know one reason: Journalists are not digital-minded, so the biggest open library in the world is closed to them;

And ignorant lawmakers keep blaming everything and everyone. (They forget that when you point your forefinger at someone, 3 fingers point at you.)
(ignorance image[2] from Random Vibez)

Ah, but I am a UP Los Baños-trained educator, stubborn journalist, hard-headed crusader, Internet-minded agriculturist, student of change, believer in “Small is beautiful” if treated right – and I persist.

You reader must know, if you didn’t, that:

Opinionated farmer leaders do not look at what farmers are doing but keep on looking for scapegoats, such as the RTL, or corruption at the National Food Authority, NFA, or corruption at the DA;

Slothful aggie journalists do not bother to understand the issues, get into the root of things, understand the science (or politics) behind whatever – too much trouble for them; and their editors don’t bother them about agriculture anyway;

Uninformed lawmakers keep on blaming the DA and/or rice importers, or the law that others made before them.

All of the above is my response to the emailed question of DA Senior Technical Adviser SRO:

In the play Camelot, there is a song (that) asks, "How to handle a woman?" and the answer is, "To love her, simply love her!"

How do we handle a farmer? How do we handle a trader? A consumer? How shall we love a woman, a farmer, a trader, a consumer? All together?

I shall listen.

To SRO, my answer is from Hamlet:

“I must be cruel, only to be kind.”@517

 

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[1]https://fistfuloftalent.com/category/robots
[2]https://www.therandomvibez.com/being-ignored-quotes-thanks-for-ignoring/