FROM a September 11, 1985 report of the Union of Catholic Asian News (Ucan), we get this: “The worst of widespread hunger affecting an estimated one million people in Negros Occidental province may end when the milling season begins and most sugar workers return to work in October.”
Then Ucan quoted a pastoral letter draft that Philippine bishops said the Negros famine “raised the specter of a generation of brain-damaged children.”
The news agency reported that in Presidential Decree 1971 that restructured the Philippine Sugar Commission (Philsucom), the late president Ferdinand E. Marcos said, “Global and domestic conditions have brought the sugar industry into imminent collapse…caused economic dislocation,” that “the industry may collapse and deteriorate…to a level beyond economic recovery."
Thirty-one years later, Negrenses have something to celebrate. In November 3, SunStar Bacolod reported that Negros Occidental is the third richest province in the country, while Negros Oriental is fifth.
The two provinces of Negros Island Region (NIR) are among the richest provinces in the country, according to the 2015 Annual Financial Report for local government units of the Commission on Audit (COA).
Negros Occidental has assets worth P9.40 billion and liabilities of P3.80 billion, making its net worth P5.592 billion, while Negros Oriental has a net worth of P4.955 billion, with P6.13 billion in assets and P1.18 billion in liabilities.
The secret of the almost miraculous recovery? Our political leaders weaned the province’s addiction to single grass production. No, not to marijuana, but to sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum), one of the several species of tall perennial true grasses of the genus Saccharum.
For one thing, the lessons of the mid-1980s showed that Negros Occidental has to promote another grass: rice, the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa (Asian rice) in order to attain food security.
Department of Agriculture-NIR officer-in-charge Executive Director Joyce Wendam pointed out that the province “currently has 97 percent rice self-sufficiency rate amid effects of various calamities like the recent El Niño thus, achieving the remaining three percent is feasible provided strategies will be improved.”
Lately, the Provincial Government has added Bambusa spp., another grass, to develop the local economy. Among its state-led economic intervention is the creation of the bamboo industry that will produce engineered bamboo.
The Provincial Economic Development and Investment Center (Pedic) has proposed a P4-million budget for next year’s expansion and development of the Bamboo Innovation Center in Panaad Park, on top of the P4 million allocation last year, with the construction of nursery and plantations.
Moreover, the province is poised to industrialize, banking on its capacity to generate solar power. It has the capacity to provide excess energy to the national grid that can benefit the industrial development of other Visayan islands as well.
Yes, Negrenses have learned their lessons well and have matured well. #Grasspamore!
(bqsanc@yahoo.com)