MOST Filipinos live in rural areas. That is what the latest statistics tell us.
In 2010, some 50.5 million people or 54.7 percent of the total population live in rural areas, according to the Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA).
My experiences with rural folk are that they are a grateful lot. I guess that is one reason why they are happy most times, in spite of the difficulties of their daily existence.
Rural parents live their lives working hard as farmers, fishermen, pedicab drivers, and vendors, and yet earn very little.
Because of the difficulties of life in the rural areas, rural folks have abandoned their work as producers of our food, enticed with the seemingly easier and better-living conditions in urban areas.
I used to think that a farmer’s life is lived each day, each season of time, as a whole balanced life.
It is a life lived fully, 24 hours a day, neither being rushed or indolent.
Unlike a life under a boss in an urban workplace, a farmer’s schedules and actions in his farm are well grounded with the seasons. His responsibilities on the farm, his home and community were done, deferring nothing and doing nothing unnecessary. He lives each day, one at a time.
This reflection may not be the true and whole picture of the reality of rural farm life today. It is a recollection of the farm life I briefly had with my grandparents, long time ago.
But if it is worth anything, it advises us today about how we waste our time thinking about the future exerting ourselves to become better versions of the past.
The way my old folks lived was to engage in the present moment. This way, existence does not miss the essence of life, of living.
For a farmer, living in the present means he has to plow the field now, not later. He does all his work in their due season, indifferent to whether there’s more or less to come tomorrow. He knows tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Several of us do not like farming now. It is difficult and hard. It does not guarantee an easy life. Climate change is making it worse.
I agree. According to the Philippine Rice Research Institute (Philrice), a rice farmer does not earn much during every crop season, in spite of the myriad of activities he undertakes just to grow rice.
Some farmers and their families do not even eat three square meals a day.
Philrice noted that a rice farmer “cultivates his farm for about four months, contending with pests and diseases and bad weather, just to produce a crop of rice.
A rice farmer and his carabao walk 60 to 80 kilometers in order to plow a hectare of land.
A rice farmer would need 5,000 liters of water to plant one hectare of rice.
After harvest, a farmer earns an average of only P20,000 from a hectare of rice.”
That makes it a really difficult life for a rice farmer. He does not do farming just for the money. But to many of them, as it has always been, living as a farmer is a life well lived. He will yet do what he needs to do, each day, each season, time after time, for his family.
And from his efforts, comes the food that the nation needs to live.
Most Filipinos live in rural areas, and many of them are farmers. In spite of their difficulties, they are a grateful lot.
And so what is that to us urbanites? We should thank the farmer and do the same thing that he does. Aside from keeping on thanking him, valuing his efforts and his profession, we need to do our work in their due season, and eating our food well, not wasting any grain of rice.
One of the great things farmers love to have is the blessings of peace in the land. He likes stability as he goes about his work.
Consumers should value that peace and stability by helping to make sure there is enough food for every Filipino.
For instance, did you know that in 2008, every Filipino wasted an average of 2 tablespoons of cooked rice or 9 grams of uncooked rice daily?
That is equivalent to more than 12% of our imported rice during the same year, which is valued at 7.27 billion pesos.
Our total wastage in 2008 is equivalent to the food of 2.5 million Filipinos for a year.
This could be the last breakfast, lunch, dinner, the last day we eat. Enjoy it in peace and quietude in the mountains, beside the beach, in the river banks, or in your room. Love all of it completely – your work and the blessings of food. Do not waste any of it as consumers.
Like our good farmers, let us live a full life today and if tomorrow comes, do the same thing again in their due season.