There’s this whiff of fresh air in Quezon, which we note from our perch here in Fresh Air Hotel. It’s the news that Agriculture Undersecretary Asis Perez from Tiaong is now advocating farmers to change their mindset, push agriculture to adopt modern technology, and think of ways to make their lives better.
Usec Perez made the pitch at the recent National Agri-Fishery Research for Development Summit in Angeles City, Pampanga.
We remember Perez as a staunch advocate of environmental protection and conservation. He presented several points, such as the dwindling aggie lands because of commercial conversion. He supports Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr.’s Department Circular “imposing a moratorium on land reclassification to shield the nation’s remaining agricultural base from being paved over.”
Perez also pushed Integrated Forest Management, adoption of modern technology in rice production such as hybrid seeds and mechanized post-harvest systems. Quezon farmers must be interested in how modern agricultural technology could increase the yield of our coconut plantations, along with cacao, bananas, mangoes, pineapples, ube and other high-value crops.
Farmers not just in Quezon, Laguna and Batangas but across the Philippines, and even in all Asia, can be “listo” to the max, find all the windows of opportunities to better their lot, open their minds to modern technology, but still the path to economic growth and financial independence is still littered with mines. And we are not speaking figuratively.
The Iranian military elite IRGC said they have positioned mines in the Persian Gulf, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, to prevent Middle East oil from reaching the West. They have issued safe-conduct passes to only a few oil tankers — China, India, Russia, Bangladesh. They have bombed oil cargoes which were carried by tankers from Marshall Island, Thailand, Japan and the US.
From a purely military fight, Iran has stoked the fires of war to include the world’s most important shipping lanes, the West’s banks and financial institutions, data centers and technology hubs.
The concern of all Filipinos is that the government under Bongbong Marcos had no concrete plans on how to evacuate thousands of Filipino workers there, how to give jobs to returning OFWs, how to make do with decreased remittances, etc.
Every Filipino is also concerned with high prices of petroleum products, transport, basic commodities.
In Quezon, the concern of farmers now and in the coming months is the supply and high prices of fertilizers, since ammonia and other oil-based chemicals come from the Middle East. Most of the world’s LNG and LPG come from Qatar, and they have suspended production, so prices of these energy products will also spike, with Filipino kitchens and households taking the hit.
Perez’s admonition to be agile, mobile, and “listo” will be overwhelmed by this unwanted and unpopular war of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump against Iran. In our lifetime, there is nothing more SAMLANG than this Israeli-American war of aggression.
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