Our country is still primarily agriculture despite our so-called claim to being an industrialized economy. While many of us are crammed into the main urban areas a good majority of us still live in the rural areas and support themselves through agriculture.
The agricultural sector divided into the different sub-sectors of farming, fisheries, livestock and forestry. Added together they represent roughtly about a third of our total labor force and contribute about a fourth of our country's total gross domestic product.
That's a sizeable chunk of our labor and GDP. And yet despite that the agricultural sector is not protected and is in fact threatened.
A major concern is the conversion of agricultural land into residential subdivisions, resorts or industrial parks. This is because land owners find it more profitable to sell their land than to manage it.
One reason is the lack of capital to spend on seeds, fertilizers and other essentials needed to make our farms more productive than they are currently.
Add to this is the lack of infrastructure support in the form of "to market" roads and irrigations systems. Because of this, most farm land lie fallow as farmers wait for the rainy season in order to plant.
And due to environmental damages due to illegal logging and mining, most watershed areas are already gone, resulting in water being wasted as there's nothing to keep and hold the water from the rains so they can be added to the depleted water table. The result is drought.
This is further exacerbated by the onset of the El Niño weather phenomenon. The instense heat is drying up farmland, water reservoirs and waterways all over the country. This has caused many farmers to stop planting in order to cut their losses.
Of course this has become a vicious cycle - farmers don't plant so they borrow to live and continue to borrow because they can't pay off their debt forcing them to sell their land to land developers resulting in further losses to the agricultural sector.
The result would be more importation of food in the future, especially rice - an ironic event considering we used to be a net rice exporter back in the day and we have the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños.
What's needed is government support which unfortunately our government seem reluctant to give.
That's why it is imperative that our country's farmers are given representation so that they have advocates in congress willing and able to fight for what they deserve. And AAMBIS-OWA, number #19 in the party-list in the May 10th national elections are the farmer's advocates.
AAMBIS-OWA is a non-profit national organization of small and marginalized farmers that understand the problems currently facing our country's farmers and has within its means the organization and ability to organize activities that can help farmers and farm workers around the country.
Their legislative agenda is for the marginalized farmers and is centered on the basic and prevalent problems of its members.
Problem 1: Production is stagnant or declining
- Streamlining or overhauling of government and public institutions within the agricultural sector
- Linkages and partnerships to foster agricultural innovation
- Advocacy on agricultural competitiveness and modernization
- Infrastructure development, especially farm irrigation and farm-to-market roads.
Problem 2: Farmers continue to live below poverty level
- Technology transfer through learning centers to increase production output and minimize production costs.
- Training for farmers and their families on modern farming technologies and alternative income sources
- Research and development to improve cultivation, intercropping, production, processing, marketing, registration, and export
- Government monitoring on farming supply costs
- Quality control standards on all stages of the industry to gain better trading terms
Problem 3: Low farm gate prices
- Organization and support of cooperatives and farmers'groups.
- Integrated processing centrals owned by farmers or farmers' groups.
- Government monitoring on trading and pricing
Problem 4: Farmers and their families are without economic and social security
- Magna-carta for the socio-economic, health, and educational benefits of marginalized farmers and their dependents
- Crop insurance and financing
- Training and education for dependents, whether through scholarships or seminars, on entrepreneurial alternatives
Simply put, AAMBIS-OWA does not ask for complicated answers to the basic problems of marginalized farmers. It asks for simple and essential solutions as seen from the eyes of the poorest farmers in the country.
Our farmers toil the soil in order for us to eat and for our country to grow and develop. Why aren't we doing more to help them?
Help our farmers so they can help themselves and as a result help ourselves. Their future is our future as well.
In the upcoming May 10th national elections give our farmers the representation that they deserve. Give them the advocates that will zealously fight for their benefit and well-being.
Give them AAMBIS-OWA #19 in the party-list.
VOTE AAMBIS-OWA #19!
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