Lest we forget, despite the hullabaloo that Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence are the way of the future, we still have to eat. Food is a basic need.
While this column proposed targeting the employment market that Pax Silica could bring in the new Clark City, Tarlac, we have to attend to agriculture because we have the labor, land, and water resources to do so. The regional economy is still largely agricultural.
Its gross regional domestic product (GRDP) just dropped to a very low one percent because the copper smelter in Isabel stopped operations last year, reducing GRDP to an unprecedented low.
However, if we have a strong and vibrant agriculture sector, this economic shock would hardly make a dent. In fact, as fate would have it, agriculture declined by 1.3 percent last year. Is this the beginning of the end for this sector as we know it now?
Let me explain a bit. A full-blown article is needed to comprehend what is happening.
Government programs to modernize equipment are not working well enough to support economic growth.
The effort appears fragmented and disjointed, so Eastern Visayas cannot expect significant leaps in productivity. Agricultural production declines under these conditions.
The Department of Agriculture has left farm mechanization in the hands of a unit, the Bureau of Agricultural and Fisheries Engineering) separate from the coverage and control of the DA regional and provincial offices. Clearly, a complex of intersecting lines of responsibility that would be easy to fix if the President wants to.
Reports indicate that the condition of the equipment distributed so far has not been satisfactory for many reasons, including farmers' organizations' inability to ensure the machines are in good working condition and to attend to the equipment's maintenance and upkeep. Some say the main reason is that these equipment are made in China. They break down easily.
I observed a meeting of a farmers' group in Alang-Alang, Leyte last year. There, I learned that this group was given two dryers, but one of them is no longer functional, which is why they are unable to mill their rice harvest on time. I also learned that the road to their barangay cannot be completed and maintained properly, even though three agencies were involved. The three sources were the DA, the local government, and the DPWH, which only concreted two kilometers.
The poor state of irrigation facilities was also discussed, since farmers near the water source were the only ones benefiting from the water flow. I also observed an agricultural technician calling the attention of farmers who were not applying the right quantity of fertilizer. Also, the treasurer's financial statements were not properly prepared or presented. This organization entered a credit business that seemed doomed to fail because its members were not paying their loans.
There are also many other organizational problems, including financial benefits from farm technicians that local government units are not providing despite decentralization. I also suspect many technical personnel lack the technical capability.
The services previously provided by the national government have declined due to financial and technical capacity constraints.
Despite the rosy press releases, this sector is bound to fail, as shown by cold statistics, l unless it is corrected at the core.
And hear this: DA is not in control of the budget for farm-to-market roads. DPWH does it through a memorandum of understanding with the DA.
So what we thought as funds that can be aligned with DA priorities is much-ballyhooed propaganda. It is an optical illusion. The allocation for flood control, which was announced as shifted to farm-to-market roads as reflected in the General Appropriations Act, did not state that DPWH will still do the planning and implementation of these roads.
We all know the story. Members of Congress will determine the location and funding of the projects. This could mean that even the Congressmen will choose the contractors. It will be the same old story. Those September anti-corruption rallies meant nothing except to grab headlines and fill airtime on talk shows. A year after those noisy rallies, attended by hundreds of thousands of people in EDSA and Luneta, they still meant little.
The power of the purse is still vested in and exercised by Congress. Period. And Agriculture seems to be a casualty of this provision. The war on poverty will not succeed under this setup.
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