Prioritize agriculture (2)
Section 21, Article 2 of the 1987 Constitution
provides that “the State shall promote comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform.”
There is no mention of “agriculture” in the entire Declaration of Principles and State Policies in the fundamental law of our land. Is this because “planting rice is never fun?”
It is about time the Department of Education reorients the school curricula from the colonial tenor of the school song “Planting rice is never fun” to “Planting rice is always fun.”
More students should be encouraged to take courses in animal husbandry or the science of breeding and caring for farm animals. The Dutch are experts at this. They are the greatest suppliers of meat, dairy products, and food in all of Europe and second to the United States in food production. They also excel in the application of biotechnology for industrial sustainability.
DepEd should inspire the youth to take up Bachelor of Science in Biology to encourage them to shift their interest to industrial biotechnology. This study involves working with nature to maximize and optimize existing biochemical pathways that can be used in manufacturing.
Biochemistry has great potential in seaweed food production which had turned many fisherfolks in a highly developed country, like Japan, into multi-millionaires.
To our uninformed students, there is big money to be derived from industries akin to zoology and biology. You can be both a scientist and a rich man if you focus on these sciences while you are still young.
It is by learning these little things in science that the Dutch, the Japanese, and the Israelis were able to develop the kind of technologies that other countries are crazy about adopting in their agricultural development programs.
We are very intelligent people. It is an irony that Filipinos work best in foreign lands. That means there is something wrong with our government.
Public administration practitioners find this constitutional provision vague and inadequate. Lacking in strength to promote agricultural development as the basis for providing the legislative framework for public investments, support, and services needed for domestic and export-oriented business enterprises in fulfillment of its mandate, the Department of Agriculture should primarily concern itself with improving farm incomes and generating work opportunities for farmers, fishermen, and other rural workers.
The 1987 Constitution failed to consider clearly that the Philippines is an agricultural country with a land area of 30 million hectares, 47 percent of which is agricultural land.
Agriculture dominates the Philippine economy. It employs about 3 million persons or about 60 percent of the gainfully employed workers. Agricultural operations provide 40 to 45 percent of the total national income and about 75 to 80 percent of the country’s exports.
Even though we are an agricultural country, the policies, priorities, goals, and commitment to the farmers, the fisherfolks, the rural workers, and the entire Filipino nation are not well-defined and are quite in disarray.
The agricultural sector is suffering from the hangover of the poor administration of Secretary Proceso Alcala. Monopolies in various essential commodities, most especially those needed by the masses, are controlled by the rich and the elite who own the transport storage facilities.
Our statistics on agriculture are conflicting. Region XII — composed of South Cotabato, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, and Sarangani provinces — is considered the breadbasket of Mindanao.
How come the incidence of poverty in this region is high? If the region is the breadbasket, the per capita income of the families should rise, but how come they are poor?
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has demonstrated his capability to lead the country’s agricultural sector. Under his leadership as governor of Ilocos Norte, the province experienced sufficient expansion in rice and corn production as well as in livestock. He was branded a “rice czar” as the province became rice self-sufficient with an average of 296 percent sufficiency level.
“It is about time the Department of Education reorients the school curricula from the colonial tenor of the school song ‘Planting rice is never fun’ to ‘Planting rice is always fun’
“Biochemistry has great potential in seaweed food production which had turned many fisherfolks in a highly developed country, like Japan, into multimillionaires.