Agriculture is the Filipino dream
Ask almost any Filipino what they wish they could be doing and the answer will almost always be “farming.” Executives have huge gardens and spend the weekend in their farm in the province. Office workers talk about saving money so that they can buy land and retire on a farm. Even rideshare drivers will wax poetic about the farm they had to leave because they had to move to the city to make money. No matter what walk of life, almost every Filipino wishes they were on a farm instead.
Farming has a specific connotation in the Filipino psyche. The word ‘farmer’ conjures, at best Amorsolo-like images of folk in national dress calmly and happily toiling the fields, sometimes with their trusty carabao in front of them. That, or the grandeur in the film Oro, Plata, Mata, but that’s more landowner than farmer. At worst, being a farmer is associated with“Magtanim ay di Biro,” that cute but cutting children’s song about how planting is back breakingly hard work. Weirdly, this tune is often used to promote agriculture, though one cannot imagine how singing about spending all day crouched down to plant will entice more people to try it.
As our population booms and the number of our farmers dwindle (the average age of the Filipino farmer is 59 – they “56” people hear all the time was the average age three years ago),
more and more people are realizing that farming is important – that agriculture is important, that access to food is important, that beautiful foliage is important. People will always need to eat, after all. But realizing that there is a need to get more people to farm is not enough to make people return to the fields.
One of the first things a budding farmer will hear is to change their profession because there is no money in farming. Farmers refuse to have their children follow in their footsteps, wanting them to go to the city and work in a call center instead. Families will shut down a child who wants to take an agriculture course in college, and many of those that do graduate from such courses have to go overseas to find work that will pay them a living wage. It’s strange that, for a country that prides itself on its agricultural heritage, there is a stigma against farmers. This is a way of thinking that has been costing us in the agriculture industry right now, and if left unchecked, may lead to further food insecurity sooner, if not later.
This is not a new problem, and it is not one with a simple solution. Just as there are many factors that can turn an agriculturally rich culture into a food insecure one, there are many facets – most of them too complicated to discuss in one column – to getting people to consider farming as a viable livelihood. But the most obvious one is to make it worth their while.
If we were to change the public perception of the farmer as a hardworking person who is perennially in debt to a fulfilled individual who works smart, has money in the bank, and doesn’t have to live hand to mouth, then maybe more people would be interested in trying it out.
It’s already happening – indoor plants have become a thing among young professionals; just go on Instagram and check out #plantparenthood. There is an active group of people who plant food in the city, using gardens, balconies, walls, and rooftops instead of fields. More people with cash to spare are buying land in the province to turn them into farms, and many established farms are considering farm tourism as another way to generate income. But these, for the large part, are relegated to people with cash to spare. If there was a way to translate this enthusiasm to the actual people who till the land, if, say, a farmer earned as much as a call center worker, then more people would be inclined to work on the farm. There are individuals, farms, and organizations actively trying to make this happen, which leads one to hope that a positive shift in attitude towards agriculture is just around the corner.
Given the chance, many Filipinos will want to live near the land. In this way, one could say that agriculture is the Filipino dream. It’s just that sometimes, we need to be reminded to chase it.