STRAIGHT FROM THE BIG CITY

Modernizing agriculture
Ike Seneres

A friend visiting from the United States asked me why we are not exporting cassava when in fact it is a major source of foreign exchange for many other neighboring countries. Just like corn, cassava is a source of vegetable protein, being an ingredient for animal feeds. It has other uses, apart from being an energy source. Is it the lack of government policy that explains the lack of production? This is the question that my friend asked, and I think that he hit the problem on the nail.
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It is just a matter of cultural preference, but cassava is the staple food of many ethnic groups in Mindanao, instead of rice. This reality offers us a strategic advantage, because it gives us the opportunity to plant cassava in areas that are not suitable to rice. Given the fact that corn is the staple food in many Cebu towns and not rice, we should really come up with a strategy to match the supply and demand pattern with a production plan that will maximize the productivity of available farm lands. Of course, we should do our planning bearing in mind the other reality that cassava and corn could be milled to produce other high value products.
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I remember when I was with the Ministry of Human Settlements (MHS), we studied the possibility of growing cassava in large volumes as a livelihood program. Unfortunately, the project became a casualty of politics, as it was shelved simply because it was initiated by the Marcos administration, even if its promotion could have been good for national productivity.

At that time, I encountered the great irony that the scientist who was behind the success of cassava production in Thailand was a Filipino, a man who found recognition in a foreign land for an expertise that was badly needed in his homeland.
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Moving fast forward to the present times, I believe that it is not too late to revisit the potential of cassava as a major crop that could be grown along with the other crops that are used as feed ingredients.

At this point, I would say that our agricultural policy makers have a tendency to be “faddist”, and we could see this behavior in the heavy attention that the government is now giving to jathropa. I am not questioning the potential of jathropa as an energy source, but as a reality check, we should revisit the fact that sugar cane, copra and cassava would have been good energy sources also, but we were not able to make use of their potentials.
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During its time, the MHS was criticized for being a “Super Ministry” that “ate up” the functions of other government agencies, as it tried to integrate the delivery of basic human needs, with housing and livelihood at the top of its agenda. On the positive side however, the MHS was able to achieve the convergence of policies that were ultimately good for the sake of national productivity.

We do not see this happening now; as each government agency tries to pursue its own agenda with practically no attempt to converge their programs with those of the other agencies. A case in point is the national policy involving jathropa, with the Department of Energy on top of the process, with the Department of Agriculture seemingly out of the policy picture.
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Cuban leader Fidel Castro makes a good point when he says that the trend towards using the land to grow energy could potentially be anti-poor, because it could make agriculture shift towards producing fuels for big industries at the expense of growing food to feed the masses.

In a developing country like the Philippines, we should be conscious about striking agood balance between food and energy, especially because we now have a large segment of our population going hungry despite our being supposedly an agricultural country.

For the purpose of putting policy moves in their proper perspective, the government should issue an assurance that it is committed to growing food to feed the hungry people, even as it advocates the growing of energy to feed the hungry industries.
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With the government’s obvious bad record of putting safety nets in place to cushion the effects of globalization, it should also issue a reassurance that it is committed to the goal of modernizing our agricultural infrastructure to support our national productivity. This reassurance should come with a promise to promote the production of our own organic feeds and organic fertilizers, so that we could finally cut our dependence on foreign inputs.

As we talk about modernizing our electoral process, let us not forget that we still have to modernize our agricultural infrastructure as well.
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