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Agri 61 Second Semester, 2019-2020 Commentary Paper No. 1 Laurenz James C. de Matta June 8, 2020

The document summarizes Secretary William Dar's eight-point strategy to double the income of smallholder farmers and fisherfolk in the Philippines. The eight paradigms focus on modernizing agriculture, industrializing farming, promoting exports, consolidating small and medium farms, improving infrastructure, increasing budgets and investment, providing legislative support, and developing a roadmap. The strategy aims to address low productivity and incomes through expanding access to capital, technology, and markets. However, challenges include farmers' ability to adopt new technologies and ensuring infrastructure benefits smallholders. Overall, the strategy emphasizes improving extension services, research, and supporting rural development if executed properly over time.

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83 views2 pages

Agri 61 Second Semester, 2019-2020 Commentary Paper No. 1 Laurenz James C. de Matta June 8, 2020

The document summarizes Secretary William Dar's eight-point strategy to double the income of smallholder farmers and fisherfolk in the Philippines. The eight paradigms focus on modernizing agriculture, industrializing farming, promoting exports, consolidating small and medium farms, improving infrastructure, increasing budgets and investment, providing legislative support, and developing a roadmap. The strategy aims to address low productivity and incomes through expanding access to capital, technology, and markets. However, challenges include farmers' ability to adopt new technologies and ensuring infrastructure benefits smallholders. Overall, the strategy emphasizes improving extension services, research, and supporting rural development if executed properly over time.

Uploaded by

Laurenz James Coronado DeMatta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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AGRI 61

Second Semester, 2019-2020

Commentary Paper No. 1

Laurenz James C. De Matta

June 8, 2020

The ‘new thinking' for agriculture by Department of Agriculture Secretary Dr.


William Dar discusses the eight paradigms of his strategy to tackle the agricultural
problems that leads to low productivity and low income. In the first part, Dr. Dar
presses for the goal of the sector to double the income of smallholder farmers and
fisherfolks. The eight paradigms are: (1) Modernization must continue, (2)
Industrialization of agriculture is key, (3) Promotion of exports is a necessity, (4)
Consolidation of small- and medium-sized farms, (5) Infrastructure development
would be critical, (6) Higher budget and investment for Philippine agriculture, (7)
Legislative support is needed ,and (8) Roadmap development is paramount. Dr. Dar
pushes the need to increase agricultural research spending for value-adding. He
also discussed how the India is pursuing to double the income of India’s smallholder
farmers by 2022 or 2023, through the National Institution for Transforming India. This
means that his goal are not lone in the world. He claimed that with the joint forces of
the local government unit, academe, civil society, nongovernment organizations and
the citizenry, this goal will be closer to reality.

This strategy is connected to Agricultural extension and communication because,


extension workers are the core workers that will evaluate current extension programs
to see if there's a gap in the pipeline of delivering research and innovation to the
common farmers. This strategy also aims to consolidate small and medium sized
farms. Consolidating farmers would be a tough challenge however, sending an
extension worker would be a game changer. I praise the idea of a collective
organization about farmers since these types of organizations tend to be the body
that leads to the intersection of their knowledge. It is their outlet in sharing practices,
experiences and complaints. Extension workers can effectively communicate with
the farmers to present the advantages and disadvantages of creating alliances. It will
also ensure them linkage to the value chain. In promoting financial literacy, we are
actually transforming our farmers to agripreneurs. The modernization of agriculture in
the Philippines will surely boost its output, but are we going to be able to carry the
burden of the modernization? We should also consider the ability of farmers,
especially the small hold farmers, to adopt modern technologies and practices
without sacrificing their livelihood security. The government should aid poor farmers
1
gain access to capital through savings, credit, or agricultural production. There
should be a fair credit and finance mechanism to reduce the farmers that goes
bankrupt. Farmer’s organizations should always be consulted so that we know
directly their needs and wants, hence the consolidation. It is important to adopt
existing knowledge systems and production practices to ensure the participation of
communities that practices them. We must find the middle road in between modern
agriculture and the indigenous agriculture so that we can promote better yield while
considering the preferred production practices. Industrialization requires active
leadership in monitoring the progress in a higher scale. Moreover, market oriented
research should be the goal in order to let the farmers directly experience the fruits
of research for development. From my perspective, the infrastructures under the
build-build-build program are focused on urban development. A part of the program
should be allocated on countryside infrastructure development. Roads that connect
small and medium farmers to market area is a great strategy to lessen transport loss
due to bad roads. Good irrigation systems should be developed to promote
production of agricultural crops in the Philippines. Irrigation systems in the
Philippines has been a problem over and over again due to inappropriate designs
and corruption.

It is a good idea, however we should not be hoping for immediate change.


Understanding the mechanisms of modern technologies will slow the overall
process. The learning curve of these technologies are steep. Proper seminars and
organized lessons given by extension workers should be planned so that the farmers
will be able to utilize the given technology. Sufficient budget should be allotted to the
agricultural sector of local governments units, to lessen the burden and help farmers
instead to adding to their losses. If this plan will be executed, it will involve the use of
computers and smart phones to efficiently utilize other technologies such as drones
in identifying pests, applying fertilizers, identifying field problems, and etc. I believe
that by constantly nurturing the future generation, we can change the Philippine
Agricultural Landscape.

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