The Farmers’ Muddle & The Updated PH Development Plan 2017-2022
(1) The Vision
is Excellent. “Metatag, maginhawa at panatag na buhay (strongly rooted,
comfortable, and secure life for all.”
(2) The
Strategies are Well-Conceived: “Malasakit” (referring to government Concern
for the people), “Pagbabago” (Social Transformation) and “Patuloy na Pag-unlad”
(Continuing Progress) (the English translations are mine).
(3) The Goal
is Brilliant as well as Complete. “The Goal is to lay down the foundation
for inclusive growth, a high trust and resilient society, and a globally
competitive knowledge economy.”
Three time’s a charm!
Now I want to concentrate
on the Goal, the first part, “inclusive growth,” which means to me economic progress that includes the poor.
That is to say, those who are on the poverty line and below are able to rise
from their economic insufficiency to
economic sustainability – mainly as
fruits of their genius and, literally, ground works.
I do declare: To solve the problem of
poverty, first you must look for the
causes – now, where is the foundation to accomplish that? After programmatically scanning those 332
pages, I found that the brains of The Updated Plan 2017-2022 did not search for or did not include causes of poverty! How can
you solve a problem when you do not know the root cause(s)?!
Now then, with me being
the son of an Ilocano poor farmer of Asingan, Pangasinan, plus from the
perspective of my educational background of BS Agriculture major in Ag Edu (UP
'65), plus my 45 years off-and-on varied experiences as Editor In Chief of
technical publications based at the campus of UP Los Baños in Laguna, I want to
tell those who prepared the approximately-137,000-word Updated Plan what they
ignored, what are the causes of poverty
of our farmers, which have kept the poor that poor since the Spanish colonizers taught the islands
agriculture (you may want to check that out, see my essay, “Christianity Not
Only Brought To The Philippines Culture – Also Agriculture![1]” 18 March 2021, Asa Ka Pa!). I will
package them and call the result The
Farmers’ Muddle, comprising of the following:
(1)
Relatively
high costs of inputs – seeds, fertilizers, pesticides
(2)
Improper
use of technologies – cultivating soil and planting seedlings
(3)
Reliance
on fast-cash loans – at usurious interests
(4) Inefficiencies in harvesting and drying – if non-mechanized
(5) Ill-timed selling of new harvest – price dictated by merchants.
On the high costs of inputs, the updaters of
the plan could have directed the Department of Agriculture, which is now under
Secretary of Agriculture & Servant Leader William
Dar, to formulate a Farm
Production Package considering the actual situations of poor farmers,
and all of the above. That should have gone into one complete chapter of The
Updated Plan. You cannot simply forget those millions and sleep soundly at
night!@517
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