On page 119 of the coffee-table book The Filipino Farmer Is Bankable, the volume I produced for the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) to celebrate its Silver Anniversary on 25 April 2012, can be found these entries:
Vision
The ACPC is the institution on agri credit policy and program development that promotes sustainable and effective delivery of financial services in the countryside.
Mission
To develop and advocate agri credit policies and orchestrate programs that would promote farmers’ and fishers’ access to sustained financial services.
9 years later, on the ACPC website, ACPC.gov.ph, word-for-word the exact same Vision and Mission Statements[1] appear. What does that signify?
To me, it shows that the ACPC, after clearly defining its role in the nationwide development of PH Agriculture as an agency of the Department of Agriculture(DA), has remained steadfast in its institutional commitments. I find that unusual for any DA agency – and I must congratulate the ACPC for institutional clarity, commitment, and concretization!
Note that ACPC’s Vision is two-pronged: (a) development of sustainable policies & programs on agri credit, and (b) effective delivery of financial services to the countryside.
Other agencies may mention the word “sustainable” in their public statements and in the news reports emanating from them, but “sustainability” is seldom mentioned and even more seldom measured in their activities.
I am referring to the sustainability of the enterprise of the small farmer. The Filipino farmers are historically non-viable or non-economically sound, and it will take a long time for the DA, even with the outstanding Team Captainship of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, to help their business become economically viable, not to mention their farming environmentally sound.
“Your credit is good, but we need cash” is a sign in many a Pinoy variety store. The great majority of Pinoy farmers are always in need of cash because they do not manage their financial resources, relying on the Fast Cash of the moneylender, notwithstanding the charge of 20% for any loan. Always on Fast Cash, the farmer pays over-the-counter for his seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides – and these are his major expenses.
What to do? All farmer trainings, actual or virtual, have to be overhauled and designed with financial management inputted from beginning to end.
Here are instances for farmers to practice financial management:
Loans – Be a member of a cooperative; you will enjoy affordable loans.
Seeds – (1) Buy the variety appropriate to the season and field, with recorded high yield. (2) Sow only 20 kg of expensive hybrid seeds to grow seedlings for transplanting, not 40-50 kg.
Fertilizers – Do not over-fertilize.
Pesticides – Do not over-spray. Better, practice multiple cropping or trap cropping, zero pesticides.
Marketing – Your cooperative will sell your produce when the price is right!
The ACPC is for Financial Services and can only do so much. The farmer himself must be taught Financial Management, and this is the duty of those public & private trainers of farmers.
Now then, business-minded farmers, may their tribe increase!@517
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