“There is no magic pill for agriculture.”

Thus said Trade and Industry Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual in an interview at One News Ph’s The Chiefs on the state of the country’s agriculture and in light of the agency’s efforts to have the concurrence of the Senate on the executive branch’s ratification of the controversial trade treaty Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

Pascual admitted though of the long “disconnect” of the country’s farmers and the market. But this time, he said, they have already an arrangement, which he did not elaborate too much because “I don’t want to alert the supply chain currently, but the idea is to connect farmers with institutional buyers.”

“There is no magic pill, just implement the programs, step by step,” he said.

Part of the arrangement is his directive to the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) to organize the farmers, link them with the private sector, and involve the local government units (LGUs) to make sure they will work for the interest of the farmers.

“I think that has not been tried in the past yet,” he said emphasizing the involvement of private organizations.

Since farmers have no bargaining power, Pascual explained the CDA will focus on organizing and promoting the establishment of farming cooperatives. The government is expected to make arrangements for the establishment of a cold storage for their produce in their localities.

To prevent the middle men or traders from controlling the cold storage, farmers will be organized and capacitated to ensure they have control over their storage. Pascual noted of one local government unit which cold storage in their locality was already contracted by traders and no more space for farmers.

“But farmers have to be organized to be able to do that,” he stressed. This means, educational campaigns and training must be undertaken to help farmers understand the way to manage the cooperatives.

“It is not easy, but we need to start and we’re intent on starting with this. It cannot be done with a flick of a finger, we need to go step by step. We know exactly what to do and we are going to implement these programs,” said Pascual.

Pascual also cited the need to work with all government agencies and especially the LGUs because they are the ones managing their localities.

Hence, he said, the RCEP or the World Trade Organization cannot be faulted for the state of the country’s agriculture sector.

“These are not magic remedies or magic cure to our big problem of our farmers. It doesn't mean that after we've signed this (RCEP) agreement, everything will fall into place,” he said.

Instead, he said “We have to exert efforts, we need to implement the programs to improve the productivity of our farms, so that they will be competitive again.”

He explained that farm products are even exempted from the tariff liberalization in RCEP.

“They are not going to be affected by changes in tariffs. But yet, we still have to improve our farm productivity with or without RCEP, with or without WTO to improve the economic condition of our farmers,” he pointed out.