Year-end wishes for agriculture sector (Part 2)

As the reader will notice, the title of this column has been overtaken by the calendar. Be that as it may, here are the rest:

The third wish — the widespread adoption of contract growing as an inclusive farm business model — addresses in part the key limitations of our agriculture which are the small, fragmented un-economicsized farms which constrain access of small holders to technology and credit (inputs) and render them vulnerable in the market place. In contract growing, the corporate “integrator” provides the small farmers access to technology and inputs, and guarantees the market. In return the corporate “integrator” is assured of a regular supply of quality, reasonably priced raw materials.

The long-term complementary solution is to encourage re-consolidation of farms into larger, management units by lifting the limit to land ownership under agrarian reform. The small irregularly-shaped farm lots may now be levelled, drained and contoured into regularly-shaped blocks to make them amenable to irrigation and mechanization.

Agrarian reform has achieved its political purpose of heading off the mounting insurgency by the Left in the countryside which was threatening the integrity of the Republic at that time. The most expedient solution then was land redistribution.

Throughout history, from the times of the Greeks and Romans up to the Bolshevik and Mexican revolutions, agrarian reforms often succeeded in their political objectives but rarely delivered with the economic promises. And so it had been to our farmers who remain impoverished.

We have distributed over eight million hectares of farm lands to small farmers during the last 40 years. Clearly land ownership was not enough. However to be even-handed to all concerned, we should proceed with whatever is left for land distribution. We should continue to help provide the infrastructure and technical support to the agrarian reform beneficiaries who chose to remain in farming. But the reality is that most agrarian reform beneficiaries and their heirs have outgrown the two-hectare farms they received from government. We should therefore allow those who opt to pursue other means of livelihoods to move on and sell their under-sized farms to those who remain and to those who are willing to invest.

My wish is for Congress and the Executive to declare victory in agrarian reform and lift the limit to land ownership and henceforth allow the

While most of our attention is directed to the needs (and woes) of rice, coconut and sugarcane (land agriculture) we do not hear as much of the great opportunities we are missing in fisheries. Unlike our limited and shrinking farm lands, with our archipelagic geography, we are blessed with hundreds of millions of hectares of fishing grounds.

Of immediate concern is the dwindling catch of our coastal fisheries due to overfishing. The immediate solutions are: 1) the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs), and 2) closed fishing seasons to allow fish time to mature and spawn.

After the successful demonstrations of MPAs in Negros Oriental and Cebu initiated by National Scientist Angel Alcala and with full support of Silliman University, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and the local government units (LGUs), hundreds of MPAs were established all over the country. However, perhaps at best only a quarter of them are being properly maintained. We should learn from the successful MPAs and provide support and more incentives to coastal barangays and LGUs to follow their examples.

A major supplier of fish to Metro Manila are the fish farms in Laguna de Bay. Contrary to the apprehensions of some, fish culture is not a major source of water pollution in the lake. On the contrary the lake is so rich with nutrients from domestic and industrial wastes and irrigation water. And in fact one way to clean the lake is by culturing in pens and cages herbivorous fish like bangus, tilapia and carp to feed on the plankton which are suffocating the lake.

Finally it is time that we accept fisheries will not receive the attention it deserves if it remains as an adjunct to crops and livestock. Our wish is that a separate Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources be established soon.

Part of the explanation for our lack of food security is our low per capita availability of arable land. Unfortunately, we are not as land-rich like some of our ASEAN neighbors. While the responsible parenthood debate continues unresolved, our population keeps on growing and more and more valuable farm lands are forever lost to human settlements, industrial sites and other purposes.

The way to cope is to raise cropping intensity i.e. growing 3-4 crops a year on the same piece of land which unfortunately is only possible with irrigation. Out of our 10 million hectares of farm land, around three million are potentially irrigable (with slope of 3 percent and less). To date after 60 years we have installed about 1.7 million hectares of irrigation systems.

My wish is that we do not have to wait another 50 years for the balance of the irrigable areas to be developed. An accelerated irrigation rehabilitation and development program should be part of this Administration’s “Build, Build, Build” rural infrastructure program.

However, we need to do a better job of managing and maintaining the irrigation systems we have installed. Since these facilities deteriorate over time and are periodically damaged by typhoons and floods, we have to increasingly allocate more funds for restoration and rehabilitation.

Also the large irrigation systems are designed for rice and not very adaptable for relay cropping and crop diversification which can dramatically raise the productivity and incomes of small farmers. Small irrigation units (shallow tube wills, water pumps and farm ponds) should be embedded into the large national (NIS) and communal (CIS) irrigation systems to give the farmers full control over the availability of water. To date, the policy is to keep the large and small irrigation systems separate. This practice must change.

Finally, the water beneficiaries themselves should be made responsible and accountable for the continuing utility of the irrigation facilities. Since they are no longer obliged to pay for irrigation fees, they should at least clear the canals that convey water directly to their fields.