In My Dear Philippines, There Is No Shortage Of Food – Only Shortage Of Thinking About Filipino Farming And Farmers!

Perspective: How high is the PH Secretary of Agriculture perched on his pedestal that he cannot see down there?

Francis Tiu Laurel Jr: “There is no shortage of food.”
Juan De La Cruz: “Yes, but there is shortage of money to buy food!”

Or, how limited is Sec Laurel Jr’s view that he cannot see far from where he sits?

Top image is the one shared on Facebook by friend Francisco Ramos on April 1 – April Fools’ Day. Who is/are the fool/s here?

There Is No Shortage Of Food. No, but there is shortage of money to buy  food! Perspective. (bottom image from The New Humanitarian, thenewhumanitarian.org)

Sec Laurel Jr  does not know that there are about 3 million Filipino farmers who are poor?

Now, how do we make farmers rich or, at least, not poor?

As an agriculture graduate (UPLB 1965), this is what I know about PH Agriculture – Farmers are using Chemical Agriculture (CA) as their mode of production. CA is very expensive; thus, 1 bag of urea (nitrogen fertilizer) costs P1,700. Following DA guidelines, a farmer applies a minimum 6 bags per hectare; that’s P10,200. Where is the poor farmer going to get that much money? From the local dealer, Chinese or Filipino: He borrows “Five-Six” – borrows 5 and pays back 6 – 20%. So, add that 20% to P10,200 – that’s what the farmer pays within 2 or 3 months. No wonder we have millions of poor farmers!

So, how do you solve the problem of poverty of Filipino farmers?

(1) Arithmetic – One way is to subsidize the farmers’ fertilizer costs. (Never mind if the rest of the richer Filipino taxpayers get a little poorer!)

(2) Change “Chemical Agriculture” to “Regenerative Agriculture” (RA) – There are 13 methods of RA that the farmer can choose from to reduce his expenses from thousands of pesos to only hundreds! The RA methods are:

(1) Cover Cropping,
(2) Crop Rotation,
(3) Farm Crops + Tree Crops (Agroforestry),
(4) Green Manuring,
(5) Intercropping,
(6) Multiple Cropping,
(7) No-Till Farming,
(8) Organic Fertilization,
(9) Ratooning,
(10) Rotational Grazing,
(11) “Three Sisters” Planting,
(12) Trap Cropping, and
(13) Trash Mulching.

Yes, I know it’s not that easy shifting from the way of chemicals to natural ways, but it has to be done. Or the poverty of farmers will stay. And Climate Change will continue to wreak havoc not only on our farms but also in our communities and in our houses.

Yes, there is an added benefit when we shift from CA to RA – Climate Change will weaken. Remember: From chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides come the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that accumulate high up in the Earth’s atmosphere, and the whole Earth becomes a Greenhouse keeping the heat down here – yes, it’s the GHGs that heat up the Earth, as they prevent Earth’s heat from dissipating into the unknown but instead reflect them back to Earth!

I am asking the highly seated PH Sec of Agriculture to reflect on all of the above!@517