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IT maybe
about time for “mediabetic” politicians to just focus
their energy in the more efficient use of their
several-million peso pork barrel renamed countryside
development fund instead of spreading dirt and
destructive criticisms through the media. In this way,
they won’t distract policymakers from the arduous search
for solutions to the present rice-price crisis that is
not only domestic but also global in scope. In the past
few days, as the poor queued at National Food Authority
(NFA) counters to buy their meager supply of the staple
food that is rice, no one among the Philippines’
legislators has put any good word or proposal that will
inspire Filipino farmers, who are this country’s
neglected heroes, to produce more to fill the needs of
the country’s growing population, which is somewhere
near the 90 million level.
Who will
help the farmers? No one, it seems, is willing to take
up the cudgels for them. They did not get any help in
the past from the government, and, more probably, won’t
get any now or in the future even from politicians who
want to see them only when they need them, that is,
during election season. The farmers should remember them
in 2010.
Not one
legislator has taken any kind of initiative to ask if
the government’s price-support for palay is truly
benefiting small farmers. Instead, what one reads about
are doubts in the proper utilization of the government
budget in palay procurement. The warning may be a good
way to protect public funds. Yet, the question that
farmers may want to ask our legislators but whose voice,
even if collective, will never be heard in the halls of
Congress—which refers to the House of Representatives
and the Senate—is: Will anyone monitor the
implementation of the price support policy to make it
easier for them to sell to the nfa? (Suggestion: Why not
post an independent monitoring team at NFA’s buying
stations to see if farmers, who bring their palay in a
rented jeep, are being turned away because their palay
has what is called high moisture content. Upon leaving
the NFA compound, they meet the middlemen who offer to
buy their palay and sell the same to NFA at a profit.)
In the past, the small farmers were not selling—or
reluctant to sell—to NFA because of their perception
that selling to the government agency involved too much
paper work.
The
farmers welcome the government’s new buying price for
palay of P17 per kilo, which creates competition forcing
private traders to raise their buying prices. For the
first time since the Marcos era, it came during harvest
season that the small farmers can now look forward to
getting more for their months of work in the field, rain
or shine.
The
NFA’s new buying price may enable them to recover
expenses and even make a little net profit. (In
computing their expenses, farmers usually don’t include
the equivalent in wages they deserve for the hours, days
and months of farm work.) The adjustment in price
support usually came after harvest season when most of,
if not all, the harvests were already inside the
warehouses of private traders ready for milling or have
already been milled but were being hoarded in
anticipation of surging prices on a forthcoming
government announcement of a higher support price.
Don’t
blame rice importation to the lack of irrigation
systems. Yes, irrigation, which is a major requirement
of agriculture, has not improved. The government
statistics on irrigated farms remains at 1.2 million
hectares since 1985 against private sector’s present
estimate of 897,000 hectares. The farmers don’t need
water for their farms if the prices of farm inputs keep
rising every cropping season that may someday reach a
level beyond their capacity to buy. Compute these: A 25
kilo-sack of palay seeds would now cost P2,500 without
government subsidy. Who among the poor farmers can
afford that price? How about a bag of fertilizer that
now costs P1,200 when farmers used to buy it with a
cavan of palay, which, at P17 per kilo today would gross
P850. A farmer has to source 41.176 percent, not from
the bank but from the most visible source of funds in
critical times—the usurers.
Why has
the price of fertilizer risen faster than that of palay?
While the farmers do not know the answers and are
waiting for someone to provide the answer or answers,
the government is now turning to them for help in
producing more by planting again after harvesting the
dry-season crop. Just like that? Asking the farmers to
till the soil for a third crop is exposing them to the
risk of insect infestation and lack of water. What, for
example, if the urban dwellers in Metro Manila need more
supply of potable water that should come from the dams
in nearby provinces such as Bulacan? Again, the farmers
will be asked to sacrifice because dams in this country
were built with the farmers as the last beneficiaries in
the order of priorities in provisioning water. Metro
Manilans get the water first.
Note.
Here is
the chance for house and lot buyers to find out why
property prices keep on soaring. The Philippine Real
Estate Festival will have its second run at the SMX
Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City, on
July 24-26, 2008. Over 150 top real-estate developers
will be represented in the three-day event, which will
feature seminars that will take up the basic issues and
concerns surrounding the purchase and sale of
real-estate properties and loans acquisition. Also a
highlight of the event is the grand coronation of Miss
Real Estate Philippines 2008 on July 25. For interested
trade exhibitors and candidates for the Miss Real Estate
Philippines pageant, please visit the PREF Events
Management offices at Unit 1005, 10F, Security Bank
Center, 6776 Ayala Avenue, Makati City or call 864-0224
and 819-2158.
www.duediligencer.com |
