Look south and stop election potion (1)

Let’s face it. There’s a palpable social unease spawned by the unstable supply of prime staples and unpredictable future that hound the nation. From north to south, the listlessness is growing day by day, and with the elections barely a year away, politicians who never cease in their hankering for power are in a panic mode.

Where the doldrums are most felt, the leadership opens the treasury vaults and doles out money and food staples from unprogrammed funds to quell the dissatisfaction in the prevailing social and political environment.

Will the money in the treasury last without an iota of viable plans to enhance agricultural productivity? Importation of rice to fulfill the election guarantee to bring down the price to P20 per kilo is, as some critics rightfully say, a band-aid solution.

The dole-outs of money and ayudas could only serve as a potion to temporarily calm down the restlessness of the people. Some garrulous senators and presidential subalterns kept fanning the embers in the West Philippines Sea and then got incurably swamped with their fears of “China invasion.”

I have yet to hear someone from the executive and legislative departments talk about strategies to help farmers get back on their feet with an incentivized program of productivity. Importation is not a solution. It is a veritable noose in the necks of our farmers.

They made a lot of hoopla about giving the NFA the authority to import and sell rice. That’s not even a tenth of the functions of the National Food Authority.

Anyway, we are not here to criticize the government all the time.

Since Mindanao has been blessed with relatively good weather and has the most number of irrigation systems in the country it’s about time to focus on the region’s agricultural potential. After all the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. has identified Mindanao as the breadbasket of the country.

Midsayap of the then undivided Cotabato was the first town in Mindanao where the first irrigation system was constructed. This was followed later by Kabacan, Noralla, and several other towns all over Mindanao.

Marcos then established the National Grains Authority, equipped with solar dryers, silos, and most importantly-rice mills. NGA was provided with sufficient funds to buy freshly harvested palay from farmers at prices far higher than the private compradors who used to dictate the price.

In time, there was a bonanza in what used to be our sleepy barrio. My father mechanized his farm having bought two tractors after the second harvest when irrigation started. We planted twice a year. With sufficient irrigation water and good palay price, the income of farmers was unprecedented.

The Department of Agriculture had a physical presence in every town. Arturo Tanco, the agriculture minister of President Marcos Sr. was a technocrat who ran the department with equal passion and vision as the president.

Later, the NGA was “upgraded” to what today is the National Food Authority with an important adjunct agency, the Food Terminal Inc. The FTI was equipped with a chain of cold storage facilities from the provinces to its central headquarters at Taguig. [Sadly, all these were mothballed when the Cory Aquino administration took over and the real estate assets in Taguig were sold for a song].

NFA maintains the original functions of NGA and in addition, perishable products like meat, fish, vegetables, and fruits to name a few. Mindanao was one of the main sources of agricultural products sold in public markets and groceries in Metro Manila.

(To be continued)