Reformat PhilMech! Agri Machinery Leasing Corp. Instead Of Wasting Billions

Tulare, California (Late Post) – One of the deepest impressions I gained from witnessing the World Agri Expo 2023 in Tulare, California this week was the reality that Philippine Agriculture really needs to employ modern machinery and equipment to cope with the growing demand for food.
There is no way, however, that the ordinary Filipino farmer could acquire such sophisticated equipment as Laser-Guided Ground Leveller for rice farming or Mechanized Bedder for Onion and vegetable farming.
The government has to consider the establishment of an Agricultural Machinery and Equipment Leasing Corporation which farmers could use in developing their farms on credit to boost the production of crops like Vegetables and Onion, Corn, Rice, Sorghum and even Soybeans.
This will stop the wastage of public funds spent for the procurement of farm equipment which is not even designed for the specific needs of farmers and given free by government.
Most of these machinery and equipment are left to rot the moment they are not functional anymore simply because farmers do not have the capability to maintain them.
The best example of this is the P5-B spent for rice farming equipment every year for the last four years or a total of P20-B worth of equipment which hardly made on impact on the country’s rice production.
The Philippine Center for Post-Harvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech), an agency which has veered away from its main function and has become a procurement agency for farm implements distributed under the Rice Tariffication Law, could be reformatted and turned into an agricultural machinery and equipment leasing corporation.
This is a proposal which needs serious study or else we will be wasting billions of pesos of government funds buying equipment which are not even needed by farmers in the field.

#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
(Video by Winchell Campos)