A few weeks ago, I wrote about Republic Act (RA) 12215, also known as the Philippine Agriculturists Act, which, in very simple terms, requires anyone engaged in agriculture to be a licensed agriculturist.

One of my interviewees was Samantha Geraldine De los Santos, an assistant professor at UPLB’s Institute for Governance and Rural Development at the College of Public Affairs and Development. One of the things we discussed that resonated with me, as a journalist who has been telling stories of agricultural practitioners for almost a decade, is how “social” the industry really is.

“What I observe from the field… the farmers will always have hesitation to accept the technology because number one, it can be expensive, number two, it might not work, number three, it will take time for them also to study the technology, to appreciate it,” De los Santos said in Taglish. “Our farmers rely on what we call the socio-ecological relationship or the human-nature relationship of trial and error in farming.”

We tend to think of agriculture in terms of planting, harvesting, and selling, with nothing in between, when in reality, farming, from the very first time humans learned to cultivate food crops and raise animals and seafood for sustenance and survival, agriculture has always been a social activity. And while agriculture is economically labeled as an industry, many people forget that implementation is easier when we remember that farmers are individuals.

“The problem is we’re just focused on the technicalities. We forget to understand how the behavior of these farmers also affect the agriculture sector,” De los Santos added.

There is no fast and easy way to fix our fractured agriculture industry, but something to consider might be to prioritize the social aspect when dealing with farmers, placing importance on the knowledge they’ve gained as longtime practitioners in their, no pun intended, field.

“Instead of focusing on technology, we need to recognize that farmers also hold what we call local knowledge and traditional knowledge. That might be the reason why they hesitate to accept technology,” De los Santos said, referring to (usually) highly localized individual and group knowledge learned and passed down through informal means.

“We must also recognize that these traditional knowledge or local knowledge that they have might be more effective than the technologies that we are experimenting on within the laboratories because their laboratories aren’t controlled—its a real life laboratory and they might know something better that what we know.”

This goes back to the concept of the farmer as a jack-of-all-trades. They’re not just farmers or fishers, they’re also scientists, entrepreneurs, even meteorologists. Mechanization, modernization, and technique improvement is important, but it’s reasonable for farmers to demand proof of concept before adoptioption.

“I hope we bridge that gap so that it’s not about the superiority of technology that was produced in the laboratory, but we also see how these farmers are also scientists in their own right and try to understand where they’re coming from before we introduce a technology.”

De los Santos shared that UPLB is developing a farmer-scientist program to address this. “We’re already training or shaping farmer-scientists because they’re the people who would help bridge community and science.”

It’s no secret that there’s a lack of people interested in a career in agriculture. The prevailing theory is people shy away from it because it’s not cool or sexy, but I would like to posit a more practical reason: it’s often associated with hardship and poverty. I believe that if there is proof of concept that working in agriculture can make a person economically comfortable, there will be an influx of interest.

De los Santos agrees. “One of the things that I saw as I’m doing my research… is that the young people are actually losing their interest because their parents who are farmers would say that farming is difficult, so… why not be a professional like be a teacher, an accountant, or finish business management and… be employed…”

That said, there are still a lot of folks who see the potential in agriculture. The thing is, they often come from different industries, and it’s important that they are not discouraged from using their expertise to benefit the industry. “I hope we find a way to encourage these young people who are trying their best to revitalize the agriculture sector through modern technology—through AI, through robotics… I wish the agriculture sector would be more engaging to people who are sincerely interested, instead of closing it off to only a few.”

The modernization of the industry is important, but equally important is the social part: that each person is exactly that: an individual whose entry point into agriculture may not always be the same. Some may be through tradition, others through interest. What’s important, especially at this time, is that regardless where their interest comes from, they are encouraged not just to stay, but also to thrive.