By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
Magtaninm ay di biro, maghapong nakayuko…goes part of a very popular kundiman song. Later, it was loosely translated like this, “Planting rice is never fun, bent from morn till the setting sun.”
The English version became as popular as the original Tagalog song. The tempo of the song was fast and happy. Despite the untold hardship in the farm, the farmer still exudes joy at the end of the day. In general, the song bespeaks of the Filipinos’ patience, resiliency, ability to face problems, and indomitable spirit in the midst of adversity.
Maybe some, especially the youth, took the English version to heart more than the original. That somehow explains why the young ones are shying away from the farms? Result is that, the average age of our rice farmers is now about 60 years.
One can only surmise that the age of the farmers, still productive as they may be, is one of the reasons why our rice production can’t cope up with our demand. This year, the contribution of the agriculture sector to the Gross domestic product is only 0.9%, a far cry from the 9.0% during the year 1999-2000 when a Cordillera-educated scientist, Dr. William Dar, was at the helm of the DA.
Of course, farm production is never dependent on the age of the farmer. Among others, management, administrative vision, technology, capitalization, postharvest practices, and marketing play pivotal roles. Our DA now is conducting a lot of trainings for farmers, technicians and would-be farm producers. It seems that these trainings are not backed up by other implementation mechanisms and financial support. I can still remember in one of my articles from two years ago, that an executive-turned successful farmer from Mindanao trained around 10,000 farmers, including barangay councilmen, but less than 500 of them (or a measly less than 5%) applied his proven methods. The training was funded by the government. It was a loss money?
May be trainings should be given to a fewer number of farmers or potential farmers, but they should be carefully chosen for their desire to try the new things that they will learn. To ensure the adoption of the learnings, funds should be allocated for implementation.
The few that will be trained and supported all the way will become the model for others to see and to follow. That’s the attitude of our farmers. Many will always hesitate to try new things but when they see it being done by others, they will follow suit. There is a caution though. I know of farmers who try to keep things to themselves if they had successfully tried new technologies. It means that close monitoring should be done by government workers, then promotion to other farmers is a logical consequence that must be pursued with vigor.
Is planting rice, or farming in general, never fun? The current trend in our agriculture sector such as aging population of farmers, insufficient production, youths not having the desire to till the land, seem to suggest so. The English translation mentioned at the beginning of this piece may have unwittingly contributed to the current agriculture dilemma.
But let me give you some thoughts to think about. Last week, I visited a successful rice farmer in Sta Rosa, Nueva. He quit his good-paying job as an accountant in a reputable company to concentrate on farming when he saw that he could actually get more from the farm. And he was happy doing it, even having more time playing golf for recreation.
He told me that there were some technologies that the government were promoting for farmers to use. He cited a long time DA recommendation of using the dapog system for rice. He does not know of any farmer now using that system because it was cumbersome to use, and not efficient in relation to time and prevailing conditions in the field. He also mentioned the use of drum seeder for rice but most farmers that he is acquainted with do not use it because it created so much problem like unequal dropping of seeds in a hole. There are others that he mentioned but are not of big help to farmers. He can not help laughing at these useless technologies that are dangled before farmers.
There is a big incongruity between the supposed benefit that could be derived from those technologies and the “benefit” obtained from their actual use. There is a lot of edges to be smoothened.
Incidentally the farmer who is a CPA, was thinking aloud about how come farm workers are not given much attention in so far as their wages are concerned. While those in the cities have higher wages, the farmers are given pittance for their jobs. And yet, they are expected to produce so much food for those in the other sectors. “How can children of farmers be encouraged to stay in the farm?”, he mused. This is something for the government to think about as it entices the youth to go back to the farm.
By the way, the CPA-farmer is getting a net profit of about PhP137,000.00 per hectare, using the technology that he honed from years of practice. He is farming not less than 13 hectares, planting twice a year. Compare that with the known average profit from a hectare of about PhP40,000.00! It means there is also very good profit in rice farming thus, it could really be more fun.
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