DA LAUNCHES NATIONWIDE LECTURES
ON ACCOUNTING, FINANCIAL LITERACY
By Manny Piñol
In Talibon, Bohol last Wednesday, July 18, I came face to face with a rice farmer who epitomized the challenge that the Department of Agriculture faces in modernizing agriculture and increasing productivity.
In the National Rice Techno Demo Forum which marked the launching of the National Productivity Derby participated in by several rice seeds producers, Rice Farmer Franciso Cavera stood up during the open forum to complain about the high cost of hybrid seeds.
Indeed, he was right about the high cost of hybrid seeds produced by private seed companies which ranges from P4,000 to P5,000 per bag good for one hectare.
There are outstanding Inbred Seeds developed by PhilRice which are sold by farmer-seed producers at P2,500 to P3,000 per bag and the ordinary certified seeds sold at P1,200 per bag.
When I asked “Iko,” Cavera’s nickname, how much he was producing per hectare using his less expensive certified seeds, he said it was 3 metric tons per harvest per hectare.
At a buying price of P20 per kilo, Cavera admitted he was earning a gross of P60,000 per hectare per harvest.
This was when I tried to convince him to use the outstanding Inbred or Hybrid Seeds which I said could double his harvest based on the actual experience of other farmers.
By using outstanding Inbred or Hybrid Seeds, he could easily harvest at least 6 metric tons per hectare.
In fact, in Nueva Ecija and other Central Luzon provinces where farmers have adopted outstanding seeds, the production per hectare could go beyond 10 metric tons.
Using simple arithmetic, I told Cavera that with 6 metric tons harvest using outstanding seeds, he could increase his income to P120,000 per harvest at a buying of P20 per kilo.
The additional earnings he would get, I said, by using certified outstanding Inbred and Hybrid Seeds is P60,000 which is more than enough to cover the P3,800 difference between the P5,000 per bag hybrid seeds and the P1,200 per bag certified seeds which he was using.
“Mahal lagi ang binhi Sir. Bug-at kaayo sa among mga mag-uuma,” he insisted.
Not even after I announced that I would make available a P50-million loan portfolio for the Production Loan Easy Access (PLEA) of the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) for the rice farmers of Bohol offered at 6% interest per year without collateral, could Cavera’s mindset that outstanding Inbred and Hybrid seeds are very expensive could be changed.
Cavera was focused on the expense at the start of the planting season rather his earnings after the harvest season, a mindset which is common among farmers in the country.
This is the biggest challenge that we in the Department of Agriculture face right now and it is a challenge which we are addressing.
On August 15 and 16, in Tagbilaran City, accountants of the Banco de Oro through a commitment made yesterday by Deborah Pe-Sy of SM Foundation, will give a lecture to farmers and fishermen on simple farm accounting and financial literacy.
These lectures will be done nationwide hoping that by educating farmers and fishermen to make a computation of their expense against income at the end of the season would make them realize that embracing modern agriculture technology would make them earn more.
In the process, Philippine Agriculture will produce more for the needs of the country using the same area of land.
To address Cavera’s concern, I ended up asking Dr. Frisco Malabanan of SL Agritech to give him a bag of SL-8 rice seeds for free.
I told Cavera to plant it alongside his ordinary certified seeds and when it is time to harvest, I will visit his farm to show to him that hybrid or outstanding inbred seeds are indeed more expensive but his earnings will double.
It is a simple formula which we call the “Banana Q” strategy which I often explain as a syndrome where people tend to embrace something new if they see that it makes money.
The “Banana Q” syndrome is often seen in front of public schools where if a “Banana Q” stall owner sells a lot of skewered bananas to students, the following morning many “Banana Q” stalls will sprout beside hers.
Educating by example is the simple name of the game.
(Photos of rice farmer Francisco Cevara and the National Rice Techno Demo Forum in Talibon, Bohol taken DA Chief of Staff Bong Piñol, Darius Mangampo and Larry Nuestro of DA-AFID)
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