Paradigm shift:The image above is a farm scene in Oklahoma[1]); you and I can look at it either as a threator an opportunity. Technology and its capacity for huge work is a symbol of efficiency – in this case, the commentator at YouTube is describing a "job threat" because of the "rise of corporate industrial agriculture in Oklahoma."
I see that "corporate industrial agriculture" is what is ultimately being called for by the Comprehensive Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act, Citira, or House Bill 4157, which is the topic of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie column "Citira Could Level Up Agriculture" in today's Manila Times[2](07 November 2019).
Manong Willie notes that people have discussed "how the proposed Citira will attract more investments into the country," while I see how Citira will attract here more investments to move into the countryside. We need Big Business in agriculture to awaken Small Business into becoming more efficient!
Big machineries like the one in the image above are a boon to small business agriculture – if the farmer knows how.
Some 50 years ago, I already knew and proved that. I instructed the operator of the big Howard rotavator exactly how to run that machine all over the field, simply:
Let those rotavator blades cut down to only 2-3 inches, not deeper.
The operator was smiling because that meant just passing the blades over the field, very little fuel consumed; I too was smiling because I knew exactly what will happen – those opposite shaped L-J blades will cut both surface soil and weeds together, mix them at the same time and leave a surface mulch all over the field, which will then decompose slowly and enrich the soil. Result? Much higher harvest than the usual.
Intelligence. The acronym of corporate industrial agriculture, CIA, which Citira encourages, for us recalls the infamous Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, but we could substitute and say, corporate intelligent agriculture, also CIA.
Actually, we already have our CIA in the example of Dalisay Rice, which had been intelligenced (to coin a word) by the husband & wife team of Italian Patrick Renucci and Filipina-Chinese Rachel Tan in Alangalang, Leyte. Having coined the new CIA, I see that Dalisay Rice is the first Philippine corporate intelligence agriculture that there is. That is because it is Big Business, P1.7 billion for the rice processing complex alone; and small business, involving 500 farmers with their small farms, not necessarily owned by them, a total of 750 hectares.
So now I am saying Dalisay Rice is already there to show how Citira can work to the benefit of PH Agriculture big and small.
Manong Willie says:
Granting incentives like income tax holidays for companies that will undertake agribusiness activities outside of Metro Manila supports the "New Thinking for Agriculture," particularly the industrialization paradigm. ¶ Through this, we could soon see more agro-processing plants rising in the countryside, which should also result in the generation of more off-farm jobs.
Amen to all that!@517
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh-809_vJ38
[2] https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/11/07/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/citira-could-level-up-agriculture/654023/
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