“Copy Our Neighbors” – Advice From Former NEDA Chief Cielito F Habito. My Advice: A Bigger DA Budget With Additional P50 Billion For Barangay-Based Organic Options
Mr
Habito says:
One little piece of advice I
have for our government, particularly in steering our agriculture sector toward
greater dynamism, is simply to copy our neighbors.
Thank
you Sir for the advice. If I may summarize you in 4 words, for PH agriculture:
Big Budget, Big Science.
The
Big Science of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam of whose agricultural
performance we are now “trailing” according to you, especially the value
chain:
They [Malysians] have
clearly long understood that agriculture authorities need to look at the farm
system holistically with a full value chain perspective – that is, “from field to fork” (I like to add
“finance” before “field” as well.)
Yes
Sir!
On
the other hand, our Secretary of Agriculture William
Dar started with a holistic approach to agriculture 2 months before
August 2019 when PRRD appointed him Secretary. His Manila Times column contained “The ‘New Thinking’ For
Agriculture” (13 June 2019, manilatimes.net)
with accompanying contributory paradigms (see “Eight Paradigms of the Newly
Appointed DA Secretary in Achieving Food Secure Country” (srs.gov.ph).
I
have complete trust in Mr Dar as PH Secretary of Agriculture. Let us not forget
that he was the Director General who brought ICRISAT from dead last to #1 among
the 15 international agricultural research agencies under the CGIAR, the 15 including
IRRI.
On
the other hand, appreciating Mr Habito, I believe our dear Philippines needs An Agriculture Reborn. I am thinking of the
predicted short supply of fertilizers with that “World War 3” in Ukraine right
now disrupting among other things agricultural exports and imports.
Also,
as Pratik Parija, Mai Ngoc Chau &
Ditas B Lopez write (“Rising Fertilizer Costs Are Catching Up To Rice
Farmers, Threatening Supplies,” 19 April 2022, Bloomberg,
Bloomberg.com):
Soaring
fertilizer costs have rice farmers across Asia scaling back their use, a move
that threatens harvests of a staple that feeds half of humanity and could lead
to a full-blown food crisis if prices aren’t curbed.
What
I will advise Mr Dar right now is a new approach to PH Agriculture:
Barangay-Based
Agriculture Revitalized with Organic Options Advancing Basic Intelligence In
Living Intimately with Nature (BARO A BILIN). (Ilocano to English: “New Instructions.”)
I
am thinking of Mr Dar asking PH Govt for P50
Billion more for the 2022 DA budget, now P107 Billion. The P50
Billion will be spent thus:
(1) Grants to farmer
cooperatives for production of their own organic formulas;
(2) Loans to organic farmers
with zero interest for 3 years;
(3) DA to produce organic
formulas for communities without farmer cooperatives;
(4) DA to purchase rights of existing
organic formulations from private sources;
(5) Digital Knowledge Bank and nationwide
promotion of BARO A BILIN.
With
BARO A BILIN, we will be cultivating A New & Prosperous PH Agriculture!@517
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