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Monday, July 31, 2006
Teach rural workers other skills, rural banks to gov’t
RURAL banks are asking the government to train workers in the countryside to attract industries to locate in the rural areas and decongest urban areas.
Enrique Abellana, president of the Cebu Federation of Rural Banks (CFRB), said agriculture is “already hopeless” in some provincial areas in the country.
With meager earnings, those in the agricultural sector hardly have enough money set aside for savings.
As such, Abellana said rural banks can no longer fulfill their mandate to develop agriculture in the rural areas.
“We are now going commercial, serving commercial loans from agricultural,” he said in an interview.
This is why there is a need to change the skills of workers in rural areas, he said.
In an economic briefing, economist Cayetano Paderanga said government records revealed that agriculture year-on-year growth of gross value added went up to 3.4 percent compared to 1.5 in the same period last year.
He said the gross domestic product in agriculture, fishery and forestry will reach a high of 3.3 percent this year.
Weather
This, however, is a high presumption considering the country’s erratic weather.
“Sometimes, researchers fill in estimates on growth of certain areas in agriculture,” Paderanga said.
He said palay, corn and fishery were the biggest contributors to the growth in the agriculture sector.
The entire sector’s year-on-year growth of gross value added reached 3.7 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
But Paderanga’s research team, Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis Inc., predicted the sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product will drop to a low of 2.4 percent to a high of 2.5 percent in 2007.
Abellana, who is also president of Rural Bank of Barili, said the lack of skilled labor force in the countryside is one of the reasons that discourage investors from setting up factories in these areas.
He said if investors go to the countryside, congestion in urban areas in the country will ease.
People who moved to urban areas to seek employment will return to their hometowns, he added. (JBN)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 31, 2006 issue)
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