Saturday, November 08, 2008 Barrita: Carabaos out? By Eddie O. Barrita Small Bites
FARMING using carabaos is no longer profitable, participants of a Regional Association of Development Information Officers conference said.
Other countries, they said, have long shifted to tractors.
Carabaos out, tractors in?
***
Carabaos have long been used as the beast of burden in small farms across the country.
We still use carabaos in plowing our farms in Cabadiangan.
I don’t think farming using a carabao is unprofitable because a carabao is grass-fed and doesn’t rely on imported oil and therefore, won’t be under the mercy of greedy oil firms.
***
If you think retiring carabaos from the farms is good news for the carabaos, think again.
The carabao, a farmer’s patient and hardworking friend, is protected by law from mass slaughter.
If they are no longer used in farms, they will be bred for slaughter and made into “kasahos” for “pulotan.”
***
It is rather unfortunate the carabaos took the blame for low production in our farms.
Poor farmers simply can’t afford to buy tractors and their farms are too small to be profitable if we look at the economies of scale.
A politician once promised a tractor for a group of farmers and not even a wheel was delivered.
***
Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal has a Christmas wish-–“that our leaders would stop all this harsh exchange of
words.”
If Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia and Cebu City Mayor Tommy Osmeña will heed the good cardinal’s wish, that would be the end of the “Tom and Gwen” show.
***
Gov. Gwen sees no need for a ceasefire with Mayor Tommy, believing the people should know who between them can fire the best words.
Like Abraham Lincoln who once said of an opponent: “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met.”
And Winston Churchill who described Clement Atlee as, “A modest little man with much to be modest about.”
