If you want to improve PH Agriculture, you have to start from the top! And with optimism, not pessimism. I describe new Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie's 1st 100 days as:
Patiently preparing for a food secure PH
& income-secure farmers.
& income-secure farmers.
My single-double image is the perfect metaphor for PH Agriculture today – you can look at it either as dark or bright. (original image, right, from Rappler.com[1])
The way Filipino farmer leaders look at PH Agriculture today: All problems, No potentials. They want guarantees, so they demand this and that. No initiatives, no thoughts on how they could help the new Department of Agriculture, DA, under Manong Willie (inset) to "level up Philippine agriculture."
Manong Willie spoke to the country on Tuesday, 19 November 2019, at the Rural Development Education Center of the Agricultural Training Institute along Elliptical Road on his "1st 100 Days" as Secretary of PH Agriculture.
The first things he said about those 100 days:
Truth be told, that period has not been easy.
We inherited a sector that is in critical stage as it has erratically grown this past decade. Poverty remains high, and rural and agricultural in nature.
I writer say, poverty is the ultimate problem,
not rice tariffication, not land ownership.
not rice tariffication, not land ownership.
But first things first. What did Manong Willie do?
The DA as an organization had to be put in order so that it serves the Filipino people better, faster, and with greater precision.
Inside the DA, there were some management problems. Manong Willie said:
I have... asked for hard work and sincere public service from the men and women of the Department of Agriculture as we pursue a "new thinking for agriculture." I likewise (did) enjoin them to abide by the principles of ease of doing business, and providing efficient, effective, timely, swift, quality service to our clienteles – in keeping with the President's directive that we do what is right and with legal basis.
Manong Willie did not elaborate on The New Thinking for Agriculture, but it can be summarized by simply listing down what he himself calls The Eight Paradigms:
(1) Modernization of agriculture;
(2) Industrialization of agriculture;
(3) Promotion of exports;
(4) Farm consolidation;
(5) Infrastructure development;
(6) Higher budget and investments for agriculture;
(7) Legislative support;
(8) Roadmap development.
A very intriguing part of the 1st 100 Days report is this:
We have... minimized rent-seeking activities in the Department, which told horrors of how and where funds were being used and how a number of units were used to extract money from private sector groups in agricultural business. Those types of transactions have now been stopped and the use of regulatory powers has become transparent to avoid rent-seeking activities of those heading such offices.
There goes an honest man!
Outside the DA, there were 4 immense challenges: dreadfully falling prices of rice, palay & copra; deadly incursion into piggeries of the African Swine Fever; worrisome invasion of the Fall Army Worm in cornfields. But:
We shall overcome!@517
[1] https://www.rappler.com/business/industries/247-agriculture/57558-philippine-agriculture-preparing-el-nino
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