[ Manila Bulletin Online ] May 11, 2008
Melody M. Aguiba
The government should rethink its agrarian reform policy if it has to raise food production as this socially "popular" system has only widened Philippines’ rich- poor gap and pushed back agricultural production.
The country has remained backward in its agricultural practice and antiquated in its farm equipment since a three-to-five hectare land, even if appearing to be fully owned by farmers, can never generate operational efficiencies, economies of scale, and maximum land productivity.
"We should stop romanticizing agriculture, thinking of ‘land for the landless,’ study very well before extending the program. A bill is extending the agrarian reform program is pending in Congress.
The world average for corn yield is at six tons (per hectare), we’re only at two. Land reform has not been effective for us. It has not raised our production," said Ric M. Pinca, former vice president of the Philippine Association of Feed Millers Inc. (Pafmi).
Prevailing in the country for more than 20 years now, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), passed in the late 1980s under the administration of President Corazon Aquino, has been blamed for many plantation crops’ failure in the country. Among these are rubber, banana, pineapple, and abaca.
Pinca said what the Philippines needs to produce more is to give incentives to land ownership and from there raise yield through mechanization.
"In the US, average farmer land (for corn) is 2,000 acres (809 hectares), and it’s fully mechanized. Here, we have three to five hectares. You can’t mechanize three to five hectares," he said.
With bigger land ownership comes the incentive of capital build-up, investments in land preparation equipment (tractors), good seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, combine harvester (with corn on the cob as product), and post harvest and modern silo and storage facilities.
Mariano Cordero, Asian Development Bank consultant, said land reform may appear to be pro-poor since it distributes land to poor farmers. But land reform has never empowered the Filipino poor since his agrarian reform land can never be used to generate capital for buying seeds and other inputs.
"We are romanticists for land reform. But farmers can never mortgage their land to banks. And why will banks accept a collateral that they can’t foreclose?" he said.
Cordero explains that to make a corn land productive, mechanization is pertinent. A tractor that plows a 12-inch depth can never be equalled by a draft animal that can only plow half as deep. A corn plant needs this depth so that its root system can dig deeper to receive more moisture and nutrients.
Mechanical planters can plant up to 70,000 hills per hectare compared to manual planting’s 30,000 hills, and modern storage facilities can extend corn’s shelf life, produce quality, aflatoxin-free corn, and save 10 to 15 percent of post harvest loss.
Pinca said the Philippines should take these times when food supply is at critical levels as opportunity to dream bigger.
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