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IT’S
heartening to read reports about two giant business
organizations engaging in agricultural production amid
the food crisis affecting all countries of the world
today.
San
Miguel Corp. and the Hong Kong-based Kuok Group of
Companies, two of Southeast Asia’s biggest food
companies, have just launched a P1-billion joint project
to cultivate 1 million hectares of suitable land for the
production of grains, sugar and other basic staples, or
for livestock and poultry production.
The San
Miguel-Kuok initiative, dubbed “Feeding Our Future,”
reflects the concept and rationale of corporate charity,
known as corporate social responsibility in improving
the lives of people in the community where companies
operate.
A good
feature of the project is that it will not entail any
government financing. The involvement of government
agencies like the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources, Armed Forces of the Philippines, National
Commission on Indigenous Peoples and National Power
Corp. is in identifying up to 1 million hectares of
land. San Miguel and Kuok will provide $1,000 per
hectare for cultivation. They are also committing to buy
all of the crops at harvest time.
I hope
other big corporations will follow the San Miguel-Kuok
initiative to increase the country’s food production in
the face of the global food shortage and high prices of
food commodities.
In the
past, the business sector had also gone into corporate
farming to produce, at least, the food requirements of
their respective employees.
Actually, corporate farming is one of the issues I want
to include in the formulation of a grand strategy for
the renaissance of agriculture. Even before the
worldwide food crisis occurred, I already had the
opportunity of improving our agriculture sector by
turning idle lands, like the huge Liguasan Marsh in
Mindanao, into food-producing areas.
Unfortunately, corporate farming still suffers a degree
of stigma because of the misconception that it is
antifarmer, that big agricultural producers are villains
that deprive small tillers of their livelihood.
However,
I believe we can establish a system of integrating
corporate farming into our agriculture sector without
displacing farmers. The San Miguel-Kuok project, for
instance, will be in partnership with existing tenants
in areas identified by the government.
In other
forms of corporate farming, businesses may forge
agreements with individual farmers or farmers’
cooperatives to produce rice, which will be purchased by
businesses for their employees. Thus, farmers are
assured of buyers even before they start planting rice.
Of
course, corporate farming need not be limited to
producing food to cope with the current high prices and
shortages. Corporate farms should also look at other
high-value crops to take advantage of high prices and
big demand in the world markets. For instance, why do we
have to import flowers from as far as Europe to fill the
demands of the tourism industry? I am sure we can grow
all the flowers that local hotels and restaurants need.
It’s not
an empty boast that Philippine mangoes are among the
best in the world compared with those in California,
which, I think, is imported from South America. The
Guinness Book of Records in 2004 listed mangoes known as
“Sweet Elena” and produced from trees in a farm in Santa
Cruz, Zambales, as the sweetest in the world. And in the
Ilocos region, where mango is called the “Ilocos Gold,”
they say it’s sweeter still.
We may
have to hold a competition to find out which is the
best, but regardless of the outcome, the best mango
still comes from the Philippines. The current food
crisis is an opportunity for us to turn our mango pride
into real gold through exports.
Yes, we
have a problem with high prices and lack of supplies
with respect to rice and other food items. Surveys show
many Filipino households missing meals. The queues to
buy subsidized rice remain long, and even families in
rice-producing provinces complain of high rice prices.
Many developing countries have the same problem.
Still, I
see in the current crisis an opportunity to develop our
country’s potential in agriculture.
Let’s
not forget, we are an agricultural country. We have an
opportunity to cultivate millions of hectares of idle
land, including logged-over areas, and turn these into
food factories to guarantee that no Filipino will ever
go hungry, and also into economic drivers that will
provide better incomes for farmers, raise the purchasing
power of rural communities and generate foreign exchange
for our reserves.
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