World Hunger and Poverty Eradication was celebrated on October 16 with a bang accompanied with rallies.
The center of the celebration in Metro Manila was in the Quezon Memorial Circle, Diliman, Quezon City in front of Quezon City Hall. Department of Agriculture, Department of Agrarian Reform, Philippine Coconut Administration and the National Housing Authority.
Hunger and poverty cannot be eradicated by delivering speeches and holding rallies. Poverty and hunger can only be eradicated by honest and hard work, frugal living.
It is paradoxical in the Philippines, that the most depressed, hungry and poor people belongs to the group of farmers and fisherfolks. Even if they are the producers of food, they are hungry, they lack food. They lack money to provide themselves with shelter, for their health needs, education for their children and other basic needs to live a normal life.
A famous author pointed out: "there is no unproductive soil, but unproductive farmer." This perception maybe changed if only our farmers will come from the "best and the brightest" of our population. The best and the brightest of our people will remain in the farm only if government policies, programs and activities will be more attractive to them.
Why The Best and The Brightest?
The farmer is a person of all trades though a master of none. It is accepted that farming is a combination of several disciplines in order to succeed in any farm enterprise. A farmer must know engineering such as mechanical as farming requires engineering equipment; chemistry as farmer uses pesticides and fertilizer. A farmer should know accounting to account his investment and income; he may have a working knowledge on veterinary medicine as he may have livestock; he may have a knowledge of human relation to maintain good inter personal relation in the farm; and a farmer may have also the knowledge of climate and weather to protect his crop.
A farmer must be able to market his crops at its highest quality at a just and reasonable gain. It is so lamentable that farm products which are produced by the majority of the Filipinos are of the buyers’ market, while industrial products which are either owned by so few Filipinos or even imported are of the sellers’ market. Sometimes, farm products are secured for free. This is non recognition of the farmer’s effort. The government thru the National food Authority dictates to the farmers to sell palay at P10.00 to P10.50 per kilogram. Beyond that price, NFA does not buy. The P10 per kilogram of palay is the buying price five years ago when the cost of production was cheaper. Will this government palay marketing policy encourage production, eliminate hunger, and eradicate poverty?
Is there any farm family in the Philippines which has been farming a five (5) hectares paddy field which family members had economically improved? and their way of living made more meaningful? There is nill. However, palay industry has made thousands of rice traders earned lavish cash and supplied partially the rice requirements of the Filipinos.
If the rice farmers will only compute their cost of production and subtract it from their gross income, they will realized the overdraft; that only rice hull remain with them while the grains are gone.
The present Philippine agriculture policy urgently needs a review with the view to revise it toward giving more motivation to farm producers. If the present agricultural policy continued more Filipinos will go to beds hungry and poverty will continue increasing. Worst for the national budget appropriated for agriculture modernization are being stolen annually.
According to studies, eight (8) out of 10 Filipinos who got sick die because of poverty. They have no capacity to buy medicine to cure their illness. Further, statistics show, the Philippines has the most expensive medicine in the world.
According to Aklan Governor Carlito S. Marquez, there are several Aklanons who are not released in the DRSTMH, Kalibo because they have not paid their hospital bills even after they were healed. "I have just given parole to some previous patients at the DRSTMH yesterday", Marquez revealed during his monthly press conference on Wednesday afternoon, October 18 in Kalibo.
Hunger and poverty maybe eradicated if the "best and the brightest" of the Filipinos will engage in farm and fish production. The Philippine agriculture policy be reviewed with the view to give more incentives and motivations to the producers. /MP mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com
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