On Facebook, PH Secretary of Agriculture William Dar has come up with the above 2 graphs, among other sharings, and yes, they’re mind-blowing! But like him, I continue to support the Filipino farmers, and to do what can be done for them: inform and inspire!
Let me concentrate on the lower image. The Poverty Scorecard tells us that PH’s poverty incidence of 21.6% is 2 times more than Indonesia’s (10.6%) and Thailand’s (10.5%), 3 times more than Vietnam’s (7.0%), and 20+ times more than Malaysia’s (0.4%)!
Shameful, but not hopeless. The poverty of Filipino farmers is where I continue to help eradicate, to fight for.
And my weapon of choice is Communication for Development (ComDev), my own 30-year old intellectual creation – the meaning of which is obvious. I published my ComDev theory in 1980, in the technical journal of the Forest Research Institute (FORI) titled Sylvatrop, of which I was the Editor In Chief. That was the time of Filiberto Pollisco, Director of FORI.
In contrast, UP Los Baños professor Nora Quebral’s 39-year old concept of Development Communication (DevCom), out 1972, does not require that it be dedicated to development, which is a pity.
Wake up, DevCom of UP Los Baños: Arise!
You have nothing to lose but your chains!
Thus, the concept of farmer credit for instance – why does not DevCom teach farmers to avail of government loans via the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC), which is an agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA)? For instance, the “Kapital Access for Young Agripreneurs” (KAYA) program being implemented by the ACPC. (You can read more about it here: “DA’s Kapital For Filipino Modern-Day Aspiring Young Agripreneurs (Yaggies)[1],” 18 May 2021, Brave New World.)
In another front, why does not DevCom encourage Filipino farmers to become members of cooperatives and thereby avail themselves of loans, not to mention machineries for rent? DevCom is supposed to be Extension, but it has remained aloof from it!
Another very bad habit that Filipino farmers ought to discard is their borrowing from usurers and paying back 20% within 1 planting season, paying P6 for every P5 owed. The main attraction of those usurers is that they are always ready with cash desired at any time.
There is still yet a double-negative habit of farmers – not drying their palay to the optimum and hurriedly selling their harvest almost right after harvest time. Those result in low buying prices offered by merchants everywhere taking advantage of farmers’ immediate need for cash – they know their business while farmers don’t!
What UP Los Baños can do, through DevCom as an active institutional assistance to Filipino farmers, is to promote packages of technologies & systems for any combination of crops and livestock raising by which farmers’ incomes are guaranteed to be advantageous, sustainable and justified.
Meantime, I an alumnus am dreaming of the day when UP Los Baños has constructed a Knowledge Bank for farmers that they can access anytime and understand! If UP Los Baños cannot resonate with the farmers, who can?!@517
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