By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
agriculture.”
Last year, the international agricultural trade of the country totaled U.S.$26.8B, almost two-thirds ($19.3B) of it are imports. Only U.S.$7.5B were exports. The deficit amounts to $11.8, which is about 32.8% higher than the $8.89B deficit incurred in 2021.
Rice and corn, our main staple crops, were the top imports.
That is embarrassing, considering that the Philippines is still in large part an agricultural economy. And there are many well known agricultural experts around.
Sub-tropical vegetables that are mainly produced in CAR are not among the top imports, indicating that we are producing almost enough of our local demand. Yet, some of such vegetables are included among the known products that are being smuggled into the country.
Many of us are proud to say that we trained our ASEAN neighbors in agriculture, providing them with important technologies that they used supposedly to improve their agricultural production. They are now of course, miles ahead of us in agricultural advancement. They are now providing us with agricultural produce that we are unable to sufficiently produce our own. Definitely, am not proud to think that we trained them.
Our neighbors, especially the younger ones, do not even believe that many of their elders came to the Philippines to really study agriculture. Or, many Filipino experts served as agric consultant in their own countries. We are left already far behind that’s why I am not surprised with the unabashed display of self-pride being shown by our neighbors. They are now our source of imports.
It is no different from the feelings of many Europeans like the Belgians and the Dutch, who were once also under the colonial tutelage of Spain. They now consider Spain as just a big, old village. They believe they have overtaken their colonial master a long time ago.
Our current situation is a stark reminder that we need to do much better than what we are doing now. We need to get out from the rut of being denigrated as a basket case of agriculture.
When I wrote recently about some rice farmers in various locations in the Philippines, producing even as high as 17tons of palay/ha (compared to the national average of only 3.87tons/ha), I was asked by a fellow agriculturist why other farmers can not even produce half of that. It was a question that is not easy to answer. Those in the Department of Agriculture should make an effort to reply to that. And do something about it. I believe though that I have a relevant answer to that but I am not in a position to apply it on a larger scale.
I think many personnel in the agriculture department can easily upscale the 10-17tons/ha rice yield in many parts of the country but they are held back by a set of rules from the higher ups who are supposed to have devised a well-thought protocol (or guidelines if you may), in doing things. They are caged, in a sense.
Case in point. In relation to the African Swine Fever debacle, DA higher ups devised a guideline which calls for total elimination of swine herd although only a comparatively small number of heads are showing some infection. That is of course no ifs, no buts. Never mind if the pitiful backyard hog raisers are crying openly for not being properly compensated or not.
A concerned group in cooperation with a company, suggested a protocol that the area where infection occurred should just be quarantined. No culling will be done. Those in the quarantined area should not venture out to prevent spread of the disease. A locally available product which was already proven to control the disease and even able to cure more than 92% of infected swine, was to be used for control and prevention. Other relevant preventive measures were to be put in place also. It was actually a research to have been undertaken by experts right here in Cordillera.
Now, ASF is trying a comeback not only here in CAR but also in other parts of the Philippines.
The suggestion was never given a day in court. There is a protocol to deal with the ASF, and nobody should digress from it. That’s the basis of the decision. It’s the Bureau of Animal Industry who calls the shots on this.
Unless, we provide some flexibility in set guidelines to deal with unexpected situations, the problem may stay much longer or beyond what could be tolerated. If a proffered solution has a glimpse of positivity why not give it a chance.
Few years back, the head of the National Corn Production Program was unceremoniously relieved from office. Reason? He was so successful, corn production overshot the expected production resulting to a considerable drop in the volume of corn importation. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.
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The Dept of Transportation, and the Dept of Energy are two departments that are not exactly believers of planning. What is currently happening in Mindoro Oriental may happen in CAR. They are now gasping for help there as they are experiencing prolonged daily blackouts affecting so many things there-businesses, classes, official transactions, etc. The DOE could have anticipated such problems at least one year, or even just 6 months before the materialization of the problem, in advance if they looked at their available data, state of energy supply and supplier, and conditions of the energy supply system then used them for proper planning and action.
The same could be said of the DOTr. Can you imagine, we have a problem with plastic for ID/drivers’ licenses. There is also a dearth of supply for car plates. Now people are trying to help remedy things due to the negligence of the concerned department. And what do people get? They are being warned to be apprehended and maybe incarcerated if they do it without the approval of the department. Why not them being apprehended for sleeping on their jobs?
The plastics and the material for car plates are easily predicted when their supply lasts. They could actually be seen two years in advance. But it seems, the officials of both departments prioritized other things and did not really bother to look into such important “small” things.**
