Transforming rhetoric into reality

There is much agricultural rhetoric on enhancing food production and increasing the income of farmers and fisherfolk.

Our hunger incidence is significant, we lack basic food, and our nation has changed from being a net agricultural exporter to a net importer. Our rural sector has the lowest incomes, with the majority of our coconut farmers and fisherfolk living below the poverty line.

How do we transform this rhetoric into reality? A key solution is technology transfer. Since this was the subject of my doctoral dissertation under management experts such as Peter Drucker at New York University, I was specially interested in this mechanism as applied to our agriculture.

We have all heard about the impressive agricultural progress of Taiwan and Thailand, yet their key agricultural movers studied at UP Los Baños. Why did technology transfer work there and not here? After interviewing leaders and officials from different sectors, I have identified three main areas to address.

Supervision

Firstly, supervision over our 17,000 agricultural extension workers has been transferred from the Department of Agriculture (DA) to the local government units (LGUs).

The DA is single-minded and focused on agriculture, but the governors and mayors have many responsibilities. Thus, the extension workers are often assigned non-agricultural jobs to fill in the gaps the governor or mayor identifies.

The solution is to provide financial and non-financial incentives for the extension workers based solely on their agricultural performance. In addition, the governors and mayors should be measured on their “agricultural governance,” and rewarded appropriately.

There are LGU-awarding ceremonies for being “business-friendly,” “eco-friendly” and, recently, “child-friendly.” We recommend that Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo work with Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala with similar recognition awards for governors and mayors in areas such as “food production” and “increased farmer and fisherfolk incomes.”

Research and extension

I have talked with officials from the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) and the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI). They believe there is much room to improve the link between the two. The most useful research is then taught to the farmers and fisherfolk through the extension workers.

Prof. Eugene Alcala, former vice president for research and extension at the University of Southern Mindanao, has studied the research-extension link in 16 Asian countries. He believes the Philippines is far behind its neighbors.

Alcala says that from the very start, research and extension should work together in the same continuum with research playing the bigger role during the first part. Extension gradually takes the larger role in the later stages on the way to commercialization.

He believes that the two organizational units, now supervised by two different undersecretaries, should have a systematic linkage program that focuses the research on the needs identified by extension workers. This will then be packaged into practical technology transfer programs for the extension workers to use.

In addition, this program should include two elements missing today: organizing farmers and fisherfolk, and targeting increased incomes through product supplementation and diversification. “Agriculture is not just for food, but also for money,” Alcala explains.

Budget

The ATI budget is a joke. In a DA budget that will be increased by 60 percent to P62 billion next year, ATI may receive only P572 million, or less than 1 percent of the budget.

We recommend that Congress, now in budget deliberations, support Secretary Alcala in increasing the ATI budget. The legally mandated Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) stipulates an annual budget of P6 billion for irrigation. Today’s proposal is to more than double the National Irrigation Authority (NIA) P12-billion budget this year to P26 billion next year.

Given the past NIA experience, two AF 2025 Cluster coordinators, namely, former Agriculture Secretary Senen Bacani and former Science and Technology Minister Emil Javier, seriously doubt NIA’s capacity to use this money responsibly. Congress should realign a portion of this P26 billion to substantially increase the ATI budget.

Political will

The fight against corruption in DA is succeeding. It must now be supplemented with the fight for competence. Addressing the three areas identified above can go a long way in transforming agricultural rhetoric into increased food production and rural income reality. We need to see political will for this to happen.

(The author is chairman of Agriwatch, former secretary for presidential flagship programs and projects, and former undersecretary for Agriculture, and Trade and Industry. For inquiries and suggestions, email [email protected] or telefax (02) 85221.)