Wanted: Farmers

If newly appointed Presidential Assistant and former Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan is to be true to his official title, he may have to learn to stand up to the forces at play in the agricultural sector.

Here, we do not only mean the forces of politics and selfish interests that have apparently made the sector a playground for graft and corruption. Pangilinan will also have to contend with so-called business interests that apparently want to keep themselves entrenched in the lives of our farmers.

Pangilinan carries a very long job title called Presidential Assistant for Food Security and Agricultural Modernization, or PAFSAM for short. The creation of the office implies that we are far from achieving food security and that current food production methods — which have so far failed to provide enough food for our people — are outdated.

If food security and modernization are the real intent of putting Pangilinan into this office, then the former senator has huge tasks ahead of him. We could only pray and hope he is really up to the job, not just for political convenience for higher elective office in 2016.

Moving closer to food security and modernizing the agriculture sector means tapping modern agriculture technology and the necessary farm machinery and equipment to go with it. We hope Pangilinan is more than aware that there is a major battle in the agriculture front regarding the use of modern agricultural technology. This involves modern agricultural biotechnology which our Filipino scientists, led by researchers from the University of the Philippines (UP) in Los Baños, have been trying to propagate.

There has been a longstanding and vicious opposition to the effort of our scientists in this effort coming from one of the most powerful and best-funded pressure groups in the world, Greenpeace of Europe.
 Greenpeace has been in the forefront of war against agricultural technology, particularly its application to rice, corn and eggplants. Local activist groups allied with Greenpeace were reported to have led raids in trial farms being run by Filipino scientists, uprooting crops, burning what were left, and posing for pictures with their foreigner allies showing the destroyed crops behind them. This was obviously used as proof to show those funding them.

Greenpeace has also apparently mobilized its public relations apparatus in the country, as well as its legal machinery. It has used Philippine courts to stop Filipino farmers and scientists from pursuing the use of biotechnology both to improve harvest and to protect the environment. Can someone like Pangilinan stand up to Greenpeace and its local activist allies?

Pangilinan deserves a chance to prove that he can. After all, he had carved the image of a feisty lawmaker while he was at the Senate for 12 years. Pangilinan has reinvented himself as gentleman-farmer when he put up his own organic farm after he went into some kind of sabbatical from politics.

From what I gathered later on, I found out that the foremost advocate of organic farming in the country is no less than the incumbent Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Proceso Alcala. During his two terms as congressman of Quezon Province, Alcala authored the Organic Farming Act of 2010, or Republic Act 10068 approved into law by the previous Congress.

That is why Alcala more than welcomed the appointment of Pangilinan to co-head with him the agriculture sector. “It is like having two carabaos work in the farm to ensure food security in our country,” Alcala quipped.

This, even if Alcala lost four major attached agencies of DA that were transferred to the PAFSAM, namely, the National Food Authority (NFA); the National Irrigation Administration (NIA); the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), and the Fertilizers and Pesticides Authority (FPA).
Now that he has acquired much first-hand knowledge not just on modern farming techniques, Pangilinan must also embrace the aspiration of Filipino farmers.

He noted with concern surveys showing farmers in the Philippines average at 57 years old with an educational attainment of just fourth grade. Average farm size is 1.5 hectares, allowing farmers to pocket only $50 of income a month. To make matters worse, growth in the Philippine agriculture sector slowed in the first quarter given lingering effects of the destructive storms that hit the country last year.

Pangilinan will have much support in the event he seriously pushes the modernization of agriculture in the country. His boss, President Aquino, has made a clear and unequivocal stand in favor of the use of biotechnology. So did Secretary Alcala.

He will also have the support of the local science community led by former UPLB chancellor and UP president Emil Q. Javier who, with meager resources, has put up a brave stand against the euro-dollar funded Greenpeace.
Pangilinan will also have the support of the highly respected head of the country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), toxicologist Dr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go who has assured the country time and again that food derived from crops developed through biotechnology and which have been approved for commercialization are as safe, if not safer, than their conventional counterparts.
It’s about time we seriously push the modernization of the agriculture sector. This is important not just to our food security but also for the environment. Dr. Javier and his fellow UPLB scientists have been pushing for the development of plant varieties that are naturally resistant to pest and which can survive them minus the use of chemical pesticides.
Any move to modernize is met with stiff opposition. But will those opposing it be able to feed a population of 100 million Filipinos, and still growing?
With Alcala and Pangilinan together working as a solid agriculture team, they may actually have what it takes to deliver P-Noy’s promise of food security and more advanced agriculture sector in our country in the near term.

Participating in one of the breakout sessions in the ongoing World Economic Forum on East Asia, Pangilinan conceded he is faced with a tough challenge of “a new generation of Filipinos who refuse to go into farming.” This truly is a threat to our food security if there will be less and less Juan dela Cruz farmers to till our rich lands.