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CITING
the government’s inability to provide enough support to
the agricultural sector, the chairman of the House
Committee on Agriculture said Monday the Department of
Agriculture (DA) will have the second-biggest budget
next year.
Nationalist People’s Coalition Rep. Abraham Mitra,
committee chairman, said during the second leg of the
regional consultations being conducted by the House of
Representatives on food security it was confirmed that
the country’s present rice problem is not caused by
shrinking supply but by the government’s inability to
give enough support to the agricultural sector and to
properly identify which lands to be used for the
different agricultural products to help the country
ensure long-term food security, thus the need to
increase the DA’s budget.
Mitra
also said the government should start using government
idle lands, government-owned and -controlled
corporations’ (GOCCs) idle lands, military camps and
installations, and prison camps that have agricultural
lands to help in securing food supply.
Mitra
and the members of the agriculture committee were in
Trece Martires in Cavite province and Batangas City in
Batangas province over the weekend to conduct a series
of regional consultations which he and Speaker Prospero
Nograles organized to help the House of Representatives
in the formulation of several pieces of legislation that
will provide lasting solutions to the present rice
problem and promote food security.
“I think
we should use lands that are idle, first for their food,
like here in Sablayan, Batangas, and in other regions as
well, so that they will have sufficient food,” Mitra
said.
Mitra
said military installations and camps all over the
country that can be used as agricultural lands should be
tilled and planted with whatever agricultural products
that are suited in said areas.
With
this, Mitra said military men, inmates and their guards
and employees, living or working there would be
self-sufficient and not rely on the budget that the
government is allotting to them, while people living
near the vicinity may also benefit from it.
“There
are people who are practicing this, like the Iwahig
penal colony, and in the different camps like the
Fernando Airbase. But it would be better if we encourage
all the branches of the government that they should
implement this,” Mitra said.
Mitra
said the farmers’ problem in
Cavite
is largely on credit access, which is covered by the
Afma law, and that conversion from agricultural to
agro-industrial areas did not really pose a problem to
the Caviteños.
“Here in
Cavite, the transformation from agriculture to
agro-industrial has been smooth. It’s really the problem
of lack of access to credit here. It is clear to us
that there would have been more products if there is
access to credit and there are not too many
requirements,” Mitra added.
He said
that so far, he discovered that the high cost of farm
inputs such as fertilizers, seed subsidy and irrigation
are still the big factors why farmers are being put out
of business.
“We have
a situation where our farmers would rather do something
else other than tilling their farms for food production
because they cannot afford the high cost of farm inputs
and postharvest expenses. Others take the risk only to
be frustrated because nobody is buying their produce,”
Mitra said.
During
the consultation, Mitra said the most persistent
complaint among the
farmers is the National Irrigation Authority’s failure to provide the
proper irrigation and the maintenance of the current
irrigation system in their region.
Several
issues also came out, such as delays in the dispersal of
government subsidy for farmers and the circuitous
process in acquiring loans from banks and other
financial institutions.
After
the Cavite and Batangas leg, Mitra’s committee will hold
similar consultations next weekend in Pangasinan. They
are also scheduled to conduct consultations in
Cebu, Bohol, Davao and
other regional centers nationwide. |
