P1-B per region for livelihood DUTERTE AGRI ADVOCACY EXCITES LEYTE FARMERS

By Manny Pinol

It was a long weekend trip which I took to reach Baybay, Leyte and speak in front of almost 400 small farmers who attended the National Organic Agriculture Conference in the Visayas State University but it was worth it.

Flying out of Davao City Thursday morning to attend a meeting in Manila and join my friend Benny Gopez in celebrating his birthday which was attended by presidential candidate Rody Duterte, I left Manila at dawn of Friday to proceed to Baybay via Tacloban City.

I was tired but after I saw the farmers’ reaction to the speeches and presentations made during the conference, I was convinced I made the right decision in accepting the invitation of organic farming advocate Arsenio “Toto” Barcelona to be one of the speakers.

I presented “Manok Pinoy,” a new line of upgraded Philippine backyard chicken which I developed in my farm in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato and told farmers that raising Manok Pinoy could earn them an estimated P10,000 per month.

For those who have well-paying jobs, P10,000 may not be that much but for farmers who could barely send their children to school, the amount could change their lives.

I pointed out, however, that the success of any program to address poverty in the countryside by introducing profitable livelihood projects depends on the presence of three important components – technology, financing and marketing.

From the stage where I stood, I saw heads nodding evidently agreeing with what I believed for so long now as the failure of government to look into why small farming families have not been productive.

This is the sad reality of Philippine rural life and yesterday, I received the confirmation from no less than the poor farmers of Leyte themselves.

They know that even if they would like to raise 20 heads of sows for piglet production or even raise 100 Manok Pinoys to realize the P10,000 monthly earning which I said they could, there simply is no way they could do that since government does not offer financing for such small farming endeavours.

So, I told them about Duterte’s agriculture advocacy which is to provide a lending facility which would loan out P1-B to small farmers per region without going to the hassles of accomplishing thick documents to be able to get a loan.

I told them that this was done in North Cotabato when I was Governor through the Plant Now Pay Later Program and the micro-lending programs for small business activities.

Under the Duterte Presidency, I told them it will done and what I heard was a deafening applause.

I also urged the farmers to tune in to GMA 7 tomorrow for the first Presidential Debate where agriculture will be one of the major issues to be discussed.

Before I left, I was surprised to discover that almost all of the farmers who were wearing yellow shirts inside the VSU conference hall were actually Duterte supporters or perhaps new converts because for the first time in their lives as farmers, they heard sometthing which they clearly understood.

They may have realized that Change is definitely Coming!