AVANT GARDENER
Spend enough time around people and one begins to hear stories about the circles they run in. This can be neither good nor bad, especially when treated as information that can help one make sense of why things are the way they are.
I heard a story recently that helped me understand part of why the Philippines, supposedly an agricultural nation, continues to languish in the field it is supposedly very proud to be part of. Let’s call it a fable. Because it is a fable, it will be told in the most specific, but also the vaguest terms possible, including references to gender.
There once was a farmer who made a modest income from their livestock business, enough to encourage them to heavily invest in infrastructure. They had also spent a considerable number of years running the business, at least a decade, enough to consider them a veteran, or at the very least, not a newbie.
But it was with great remorse that they had to shut down their business, not because they were losing money (though money had been tight lately, what with the rising costs of feed and whatnot), but because the local government of the area their farm was in (which, at that point, was mostly agricultural) had decided that agriculture businesses were passe and were looking to turn the area into an industrial park. One can only guess as to the reason behind this sudden change of heart, when the area, for decades, credited a lot of its prosperity to the many successful farms that operated in it. Perhaps it was an assurance that some other industry would bring in more revenue. Perhaps decision makers decided that farms were uncool. Whatever the reason, they would not be swayed, and all the livestock farms were told to pack up and move out, leaving our hypothetical farmer with the task of dismantling a multi-million peso operation in a short time span, or else be charged with going against the law.
But fate is fickle, and for whatever reason, the negotiations for the industrial park took longer than expected, long enough that the area’s income began to suffer. The farmers, the same farmers who were told to leave, were invited to set up their farms once again. But our farmer had already spent a lot of money dismantling their operations. They were rightly scared that if they spent money to build their farm once again, they would be at the mercy of decision makers who could tell them to shut down their business on a whim, even if they owned their land.
Given this purely hypothetical story that in no way happened in real life and that I didn’t hear firsthand, it’s no wonder that it’s not just marginalized farmers who, if they had a choice, don’t want to have anything to do with the industry. Even well-off businesspeople are being driven to leave, not by dwindling profits, but by difficult, even hostile, business environments perpetuated by decision makers blinded by the idea of generating more profit or the glamor of their area being associated with mechanical industry, not understanding that farming, when supported the right way, can be both.
Of course, there are LGUs that are highly supportive of the agricultural businesses within them, but they are not enough. The Philippines needs to bolster its agriculture industry not just so it can contribute to the GDP, but also because it needs to fortify its food security. We have to be prepared for a (hopefully hypothetical) time when countries will not sell us food, so we will have to be reliant on our own. We’ve already seen from countries such as India curbing its rice exports, so this conjecture isn’t as fanciful as it sounds.
The Department of Agriculture seems to be setting down a model that will hopefully revitalize the industry, but even the best laid plans won’t work without the cooperation of the actual people who can help implement them, which in this case, would be LGUs.
Let’s hope that the scenario above, again, totally did not happen and wasn’t told to me at all, becomes a thing of the past and that more LGUs realize the importance of food production, not just for a town’s bottom line, but for the good of the Filipino people.