It’s about time that the country’s farmers are given due recognition for their sacrifices by including them on the priority list of those must be vaccinated against Covid-19.
AFTER the Department of Agriculture has confirmed that farm workers would not be included in the first wave of inoculation, various groups are urging the government to include them in the priority list in the national vaccination program.
The groups contend that it’s about time to make the farmers feel that the government truly cares for them since for the longest time, the country’s food producers are given the short end of the stick, which is unfair for them as they are the main contributors in the country’s sustenance.
“We want farmers to be recognized as front liners, but if we’re being realistic, most of them live in third- or fourth-class municipalities where there is no adequate health care. They would most likely be vaccinated last,” said Rosendo So, chairman of the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura.
So acknowledged that while private employees will most likely have their vaccines subsidized by companies, there is no one to shoulder the cost for vaccination of farmers since agriculture is not institutionalized in the country.
Farmers and fisher folk put food on the table for millions of Filipinos, yet they are among the poorest workers in the country who could hardly put food in their own family’s tables.
They are overworked yet underpaid and are rarely given government aid as most of them are in provinces, with local governments that are already struggling from providing cash subsidies and relief goods to them.
Given the struggling state of their LGUs, farmers and agricultural workers would mostly rely on the national government to receive doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Farmer-leaders revealed that there have been requests to include frontline food workers in the government’s distribution plan, especially after keeping Filipinos fed throughout the pandemic.
For now, the government, through the Department of Health, announced that medical frontliners, senior citizens, and those with existing illnesses would be prioritized for the vaccine.
Following this announcement, Magsasaka party list Representative Argen Cabatbat pledged to work towards including farmers on the list. (MO)