Need for closer working rapport between aggie sector, media cited

MANILA, Philippines - The Star and another morning daily have been running a regularly weekly page for agriculture for many years now. The other papers used to run a page each but not until they decided to print more crime, entertainment and sports stories.

For an agricultural country like the Philippines , it is indeed ironic that our mass media pay little attention to news about agriculture. Sad to say, most of today’s newspapers print nothing about farming except perhaps when a local farmer wins an international award or a top agriculture official is involved in a multi-million-peso scam.

On the other hand, radio has played a remarkably significant part in the dissemination of farm technology and development information.

In whatever medium however, it is imperative that information vital to agricultural development reach the public, particularly the farmers, the policy makers and the implementors  of the program for agriculture.

Quoting a former agriculture editor of a defunct newspaper, he said in a column: “A reading of the history of Filipino journalism shows that its agricultural reportorial arm is still to attain the prominence already attained by the arms which cover the political, government, police, and trade and industry beats. The prominence relates to the regularity of reports landing on the front page.

“Why news reports on agricultural developments are often shunted to the inside pages of newspapers is questionable since the mainstay of the national economy is still the agricultural sector or without it, there will be no such thing as a Filipino economy.

“There are many reasons for such a treatment of news from the farm beat. One could be the citified orientation of those who man the news desk. Another could pertain to editorial policy, while a third could be due to agricultural news report rendered in dull manner that they are evaluated as mere space fillers.”

He added: “Writing agricultural news reports in a way that prevents them from being buried in the inside pages requires both imagination and preparedness on the part of the agricultural journalist, with the ability to write simply and objectively.”

For another, there is that lack of favorable working relationship between the agricultural sector and the media.

As what a colleague, Rudy Fernandez of this newspaper has likewise said: “We have yet to see a closer working relationship between the agricultural sector and the media. For their healthy partnership will ultimately redound to the welfare of the farmer who, for ages now, has often been considered the lowest common denominator in Philippine society and likened to ‘a slave who has learned to love his chain.’”