Where Are The Poor Rice Farmers In The Updated PH Development Plan 2017-2022?!

Ha. On Facebook, the National Economic & Development Authority (NEDA), who directed the preparation of the Updated Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, is asking for feedback. As a Filipino, I have downloaded the pdf, read it with the Editor In Chief in me, and these are what I have to say in summary:

(1) Vision is Excellent. “Metatag, maginhawa at panatag na buhay (strongly rooted, comfortable, and secure life for all).”

(2) Strategies are Well-Conceived: “Malasakit” (Concern for the people), “Pagbabago” (Transformation) and “Patuloy na Pag-unlad” (Continuing Progress) (English translations mine).

(3) 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.”

Excellent vision, well-conceived strategies, brilliant & complete goal – yet, even at 332 digital pages, The Plan is incomplete! It’s the lack in Methodology.

I want to concentrate on the Goal, first part, “inclusive growth,” which means to me economic progress that includes the poor. Especially the poor farmers. 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.

I do declare: To solve the problem of poverty, first you must resolve the cause(s). After programmatically searching those 332 pages, I found that the brains of The Updated Plan did not search for any of the causes of poverty! How can you solve a problem not knowing the root cause(s)?!

The best that the Updated Plan offers to rice farmers is this 32-word sentence about the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF):

The (RCEF) provides assistance to rice farmers in the form of farm machinery and equipment, high-yielding seeds, access to affordable credit, and skills training programs on farm mechanization and modern farming techniques.

Nothing on rice farmers’ emancipation from poverty!

Now then, with me being the son of a poor Ilocano farmer of Pangasinan, with the perspective of my BS Agriculture major in Ag Edu (UP '65), and with my 45 years off-and-on varied experiences as Editor In Chief of technical publications, I want to tell the NEDA people where The Updated Plan is outdated – what I know are the causes of poverty of our rice farmers, which have kept the poor that poor since the Spanish colonizers taught the islands Agriculture. I will now package them and call the result The Farmers’ Muddle:

(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 – usurious paybacks

(4)   Inefficiencies in harvesting and drying – non-mechanized

(5)   Ill-timed selling of new harvests – price dictated  by merchants.

Covering all of the above, the updaters of the plan could have directed Secretary of Agriculture and very-much-experienced Servant Leader William Dar, to formulate The 21st Century PH Farm Revolution Package. That should have made one complete chapter of The Updated Plan. NEDA, if you leave the rice farmers poor, how can you sleep soundly at night?!@517

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