We do have French connections in our Philippine history, education, and struggle for economic development.
Not known to many, a Frenchman in the early 1820s had developed what could be the first modern farm in the Philippines. A French educational system was also introduced in the Philippines.
Paul Proust de la Gironiere arrived in the Philippines in 1819. By some fate, he was left behind by the merchant ship that he worked for when it sailed out of Manila port. A lot of things happened from the time his ship left until he finally decided to go to Jala-Jala to start his farm in the year 1823. His farm business venture is what I would like to focus on.
I first, learned about Gironiere when I read the book by Benito J. Legarda, Jr. entitled “After the Galleons” (published in 2002). This is how he described the farm that Gironiere developed in Jala-Jala.
The property that he purchased measured about 2,400 hectares. For a while, this was the economic showplace of the Philippines, both during Gironiere’s tenure and after. Many visitors in Manila, between 1825 and 1860, found occasion to go there and record their impressions, usually favorable, of what they saw. His estate includes plantations for coffee (90,000 trees), indigo, sugar (20 hectares with his own sugar mill), abaca (40,000 plants), and rice (84 hectares). He also raised livestock: 3,000 bulls, cows, and calves; 600 carabaos; 600 horses; 100 sheep; and 150 goats. He also supplied firewood and timber from his estate. For his coffee project, he won a prize from the Economic Society on June 27, 1837.
An experiment
I think this could be the biggest farm in the Philippines then, with such diversified farm enterprises.
The second French contribution is the Family Farm School that was introduced in the Philippines in 1988. The origins of the first Family Farm School can be traced back to 1937. It was the idea of a farmer who was concerned about the education of his son and the rural youth. Many of the young people were leaving the rural areas in favor of the cities. So the father thought that there must be a better way to educate the youth so that they can stay in the rural areas, make themselves a decent living, and develop their areas to provide them opportunities, instead of going to the cities.
The “experiment” became a success. The system of education that he developed with the help of his parish priest came to be known as Maison Familiale Rurale. Today, there are close to 3,000 such schools in more than 40 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas (North, Central, and South), Oceania, and Asia.
The Dagatan Family Farm School opened its doors in 1988 and was inaugurated by President Corazon C. Aquino. It is the first such school in the Philippines and Asia. It was promoted by a group of businessmen, led by Fritz Gemperle who saw the model in Spain. Today, there are 11 such schools in operation. The Family Farm Schools follow what is called the alternancia system. Students spend 30-40 percent of their time in school while the other 60-70 percent are spent on hands-on training, either in their parents’ farm or in someone else’s farm.
In 2009, MFI Farm Business School in Jala-Jala, Rizal opened its doors to a batch of students for a post-secondary program following the same curricular design of the Maison Familiale Rurale. The Farm Business School is a project of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) which was launched in 2005 seeing the need for farm supervisors, farm managers, and agripreneurs.
MFI Foundation is the first to adopt the project.
Today, there are three other Farm Business Schools in operation in Palawan, Negros Occidental, and Zamboanga del Sur.
Lessons to be learned
Though the farm established by Gironiere may be considered large by today’s standards, the lesson that has to be drawn is that it functioned as a diversified farm. The great majority of the large farms that we know of late (until land reform chopped them up to pieces) is monocrop. Thus, a hacienda could simply be planted to rice, coconut, sugar, or pineapples and nothing more. Unfortunately, this system is also the case of many of our small family farms today. With such a system, having a small farm with only one crop, the farmer and his family will always be poor. Land is so under-utilized and labor as well. Thus, the phenomenon of high under-employment rate in rural areas. Coupled with low productivity due to lack of education and training, this situation is a sure formula for poverty.
‘Condominium farming’
Farmers should be taught how to do multicropping (some people call it “multistory” or “condominium farming”). This way, farmers have multiple sources of income. And since each crop requires its own set of cultural practices, farmers’ time and labor will be maximized. This is the reason why Batangas and Cavite farmers are more progressive than their counterparts in the rest of the Philippines.
This brings us to the second lesson. To increase productivity and to entice our farmers to go into multi-cropping requires a lot of education and training. Thus, what the Family Farm Schools and its variant, the Farm Business Schools, are doing is very important. Education officials should realize that circumstances in rural areas are very different from rural areas and, therefore, should be open to different types of modalities in educating the rural youth.
I am happy that the Rural Farm Schools Bill has passed the third and final reading at the Senate. The bill, when signed into law by President Aquino, shall make it possible for Family Farm Schools and Rural Development Schools to offer their unique curriculum as part of the alternative mode of delivery. With the law in place, it should lead to the establishment of at least one such school per province as soon as possible. This is definitely one anti-poverty strategy in the right direction.
(The author is project manager for Farm Business Schools of the MAP, a member of the MAP agribusiness and countryside development committee, and dean of MFI Farm Business School. Feedback at map@globelines.com.ph and renegayo@gmail.com. For previous articles, please visit www.map.org.ph)