Wednesday, March 26, 2008 Nalzaro: Farmers' plight By Bobby Nalzaro Saksi
I CAN speak with authority on the plight of our farmers because my parents were farmers. When I was a kid until I finished high school in Dipolog City, we children helped our father till a piece of land he inherited from his parents. My family also cultivated a few hectares of coconut and agricultural land owned by a wealthy relative.
Farming and a little income from copra allowed my parents to send us to school and to support the family’s daily needs. I only stopped helping my parents till our farm when I went to college in Zamboanga City, a hundred kilometers away from Dipolog, capital of Zamboanga del Norte, a rice producing province.
My father died in 1994. Since none of us stayed with our parents, my mother took over the supervision of the farm. She paid people to do the tilling while I helped finance the purchase of fertilizers and pesticides. Planting season is twice a year.
Our rice was good we could eat it even without viand. That is why people, even if poor, buy rice instead of corn. That was then when rice was abundant and affordable.
Actually, there is no money in farming, especially if the tillers rent the land. The sharing scheme is one cavan for the land owner and two cavans for the farmers. But the farmers shoulder the cost, from planting to harvesting.
A rice shortage has been reported because of shortfall in rice production here and abroad. The country produces about 90 percent of its rice requirement, and we need to import up to 2.1 million metric tons to maintain a two-month inventory.
We used to export rice but have now become importers. Some Vietnamese learned farming technique from the International Rice Research Institute and at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños campus. The problem is that our rice trading partners like Vietnam, China and India are now focusing on industrialization rather than promoting the agriculture sector.
Is there rice shortage in the country? Government officials say we have enough rice supply. If so, why are rice prices rising? Does not the law of supply and demand say that if supply is low prices go up?
Why is rice production in the country low? Two reasons: conversion of agricultural lands into subdivisions, industrial zones and golf courses and government’s lack of support for farmers. In one instance, fertilizer funds were even distributed to urban area lawmakers to fund their poll campaign.
