“Support The Backbone Of PH Economy” – BusinessMirror. “Time To Change Our View Of Agriculture As 'Man With The Plow'" – Frank A Hilario

Too Late The Hero when it comes to PRRD and what his legislators can do to hugely help finance PH Agriculture!?

I almost forgot: BusinessMirror had a 583-word Editorial titled “Support The Backbone Of Philippine Economy” (30 Nov 2021, BusinessMirror.com.ph) – neither mentioning even  once “Agriculture” nor showing an image of the subject. Perhaps our media editors were still thinking of Agriculture as typified by “The Man With The Plow”?
(image from a room in Amancio Farm Hotel in Cordon, Isabela that I took 22 June 2018)

Whatever, BusinessMirror, much thanks anyway!

I a UP Los Baños agriculturist agree with the editors of BusinessMirror when they declare that Agriculture – in the editorial “agri-food sector” – is the “Backbone of Philippine Economy.” They don’t make editorials like they used to anymore!

Now then, BusinessMirror magnifies the importance of growing cacao (for chocolate) and coffee (for that universally famous hot drink), saying:

Unfortunately, despite the fact that these two cash crops are grown in the Philippines, local planters have yet to fully take advantage of the good global prices. The country’s climate is suitable for these crops, yet farmers continue to prefer rice, corn and other crops that grow faster and can be sold immediately. Two years after Congress converted the quantitative restriction on rice into tariffs, the government has yet to entice more farmers to practice crop diversification.

From those 77 words above, I a farmer’s son can harvest several intellectual fruits ripe enough for munching right away: country’s climate, rice, corn, cash crops, crop diversification.

“The country’s climate is suitable for these crops,” BusinessMirror says, referring to cacao and coffee; scientifically, I know that wet & dry, our climate is more than suitable for many of our crops.

If only our farmers employ the best procedures or practices that science can offer them!

Crop diversification – anywhere, anytime, I would recommend this type of farming: mixed cropping, otherwise referred to as agroforestry, intercropping, multiple cropping. Grown at the same time in the same field, more crops means more natural protection from pests & diseases – this how Mother Nature works: Creatures feed on other creatures who otherwise would feed on the crops’ leaves, stems and/or roots.

(BusinessMirror does not mention crop & livestock as a rich combination for farming and, since I am not a husbandman – I obtained my BSA major in Ag Edu from UP Los Baños in 1965 – I don’t mind.)

BusinessMirror says:

The next president of the Philippines should keep these things in mind when crafting a strategy for the agri-food sector. Increasing the budget of the local farm sector is not enough; there must be a reckoning of the policies that have not been implemented properly, which effectively prevented the sector from increasing its contribution to the country’s economy.

I say the next PH President should carefully select and intently listen to his/her Secretary of Agriculture – and mind the Senators and Representatives in Congress. Politics should not get in the way of progress via Agriculture!@517