IF things don’t change as they are right now, the country may find itself unable to sustain its food security. The threat comes from our aging agricultural producers. In a few years, many Filipino farmers will no longer be able to do the backbreaking work of planting food crops due to old age. The average age of the Filipino farmer is 60 years old. And it is possible that many of them have left the farming sector in recent years because they have retired or have opted to find work that is not as punishing as plowing the field.
Unlike their private sector counterparts, retirees from the farming sector, particularly smallholders, do not get a monthly pension. Smallholders practically have no choice unless they have a child abroad or have relatives that are willing to take them in. More often than not, the children of these smallholders will inherit nothing but their poverty.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority give us a clear illustration of how difficult it is for many Filipino farmers to get out of poverty. In the last decade, despite the increase in the budget for the agriculture sector, farmers and fishermen remained as the poorest workers in Philippine society. Preliminary estimates released by the agency in June showed that poverty incidence among farmers and fishermen has gone down, but the rate was still above the national poverty incidence of 16.7 percent.
These figures alone are enough to discourage millennials from going into agriculture. A former official of the Department of Agriculture once said in a forum that the Philippine farming sector has an “image problem” because farmers are usually portrayed as plowing their land with the help of their carabaos and wearing tattered clothes. Sadly, however, people cannot be blamed for having such a mindset, as the incomes of planters have not improved significantly in the past years.
What government data is telling us is that many of those who chose to feed the nation cannot even send their children to school or buy their basic needs. If the government’s goal is to entice the youth to produce the food requirements of the Philippines, merely imploring them to take up farming will not convince them to even look at the sector. Beyond lip service, stakeholders including the government should create the necessary conditions that will allow young farmers to profit from agriculture.
For instance, many rural areas are still badly in need of farm-to-market roads that will make it easier for farmers to transport their produce and allow them to stop relying on traders who buy their crops at a low price or even below production cost. If they need money so they can plant again, farmers cannot just easily go to the bank and take out a loan. When storms come and their uninsured crops are destroyed, they would have to tighten their belts or turn to loan sharks to be able to plant again.
It is time for us to focus on our farmers and provide them what they truly need. This administration still has the chance to turn things around to safeguard the country’s food supply with the help of the youth. Unless farmers’ income improve considerably, it would be difficult for the state to entice young Filipinos to go into farming and help produce the country’s food requirements.