Agricultural Sector Not Performing As It Should Be Because There's No One Advocating For Them - AAMBIS-OWA #19

As I stated in my prior 2 posts on the subject, our country's agriculture is a mix of small, medium and large farms with the majority of them small lots averaging about 2 hectares.

Despite that, agriculture is a main occupation of about a third of our workers and contribute about 1/5th of our Gross Domestic Product.

Crop cultivation is the main enterprise with the rest being poultry, services, and swine farming.

Despite its desire to implement reforms to increase productivity, efficiency, competitiveness, market adaptability, and sustainability, the agricultural sector's reforms have been hampered by inadequate resources, limited implementing capabilities of both national and local government units and weak coordination among the differing implementing agencies.

This has resulted in a significant decrease in overall productivity, high production costs and negligible government support. Add past and current environmental disasters such as the El Niño and La Niña phenomena that have hit us and the agricultural sector is in a crisis.
A crisis that has affected the crop sub-sector wherein farmers saw a 1.42% decrease in total production last year. While overall gate prices went up by about 1.81% hidden by that is the fact that coconut prices went down by 21.03%, coffee by 10.17% and Onions by 30.62%.

And even with prices of fertilizer down (for now) it has been offset by increases in the price of fuel which will, in turn, eventually increase the price of fertilizers in the future. This will be true when the price of oil in the global market hits $100 per barrel again and there is no reason why it won't.
These two elements are two of the biggest cost of production facing our country's farmers.

And despite our government's promises nothing seems to be done or if it is it only benefits those that have political connections or those that have big farms that don't really need government assistance. Often it's a case of too-little-too-late.

That's why it's imperative that our country's farmers are given representation so that they have advocates in congress willing and able to fight for what they need and deserve.


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 marginalized farmers that started as a half-hour Sunday radio program in Iloilo that soon spread beyond the boundaries of Region IV.

As a farmer's organization, AAMBIS-OWA understands the basic problems plaguing our farmers from the farmer's perspective. It is their purpose to promote and support agendas that help uplift the economic welfare and rights of marginalized farmers and their families 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

AAMBIS-OWA seeks party-list representation in the House of Representatives to fight for a comprehensive and sustainable legislative agenda for marginalized farmers. Through a common voice, AAMBIS wishes to bring attention and to find rightful solutions to the grassroots of the agricultural industry.

It's not about asking for complicated answers to the basic problems of marginalized farmers. It's about asking 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.

Give our farmers the representation and zealous advocacy that they deserve.

In the upcoming May 10th national elections give our farmers AAMBIS-OWA #19.

VOTE AAMBIS-OWA #19 ON MAY 10TH!

Agricultural Sector Needs Support - Especially Our Farmers - AAMBIS-OWA #19

In our country agriculture holds an equally important status as the other economic sectors. It plays an important role in our country's economic growth and development.

We have a total of 4.8 million agricultural farms covering an area of about 9.7 million hectares, constituting about a third of our country's total land area. While the number of farms has increased the total farm area has been decreasing.

This is mostly due to an increase in the conversion of farmland to residential and commercial purposes, especially near major urban areas.

This has resulted in the average farm size of about 2.04 hectares used for raising crops, fruit trees, livestock, poultry or in any other agricultural activity.

High cost of inputs, low price of produce, lack of capital and post-harvest facilities, labor problem, pests and diseases, an inadequate irrigation system, incomplete "farm-to-market" transportation network, along with low gate-prices add to the the main obstacles facing farmers today.

Lack of government concern and funding along with government foot-dragging, has also helped to further exacerbate the situation especially in times of environmental threats like the current El Niño weather phenomenon.

This does not help the small poor farmers who only net P12,000 for the entire harvest season.

Government emergency outlays are good but they are only a short-term patch and most of the time the money does not even reach the ones that needs them.

What's needed is the will and zealousness to advocate for the needs and concerns of the farmers of our country.


AAMBIS-OWA is a non-profit national organization of small marginalized farmers that started as a half-hour Sunday radio program in Iloilo that soon spread beyond the boundaries of Region IV.

As a farmer's organization, AAMBIS-OWA understands the basic problems plaguing our farmers from the farmer's perspective. It is their purpose to promote and support agendas that help uplift the economic welfare and rights of marginalized farmers and their families around the country.

Their legislative agenda includes:

• Streamlining or overhauling of government and public institutions within the agricultural sector.

• Agricultural competitiveness and modernization

• Infrastructure development, especially farm irrigation and farm-to-market roads

• Training for farmers and their families on modern farming technologies and alternative income sources

• Government monitoring on trading and pricing

• Crop insurance and financing
  

AAMBIS-OWA seeks party-list representation in the House of Representatives to fight for a comprehensive and sustainable legislative agenda for marginalized farmers. Through a common voice, AAMBIS wishes to bring attention and to find rightful solutions to the grassroots of the agricultural industry

It's not about asking for complicated answers to the basic problems of marginalized farmers. It's about asking for simple and essential solutions as seen from the eyes of the poorest farmers in the country.

Give our farmers the representation and zealous advocacy that they deserve.

VOTE AAMBIS-OWA #19 ON MAY 10TH!

Give OUR Farmers The Representation They Deserve - AAMBIS-OWA #19

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!