Bridges in the Sky A PROPOSAL TO LINK UP FARMERS TO THE MARKET IGNORED BY GOVT

By Manny Pinol

In the summer of 2010, in the midst of the political campaign, I was in a helicopter with then presidential candidate Benigno S. Aquino III which flew us from the town of Midsayap in North Cotabato to the capital city of Kidapawan.

During the short 15-minute air travel, I was able to point out to presidential candidate Noynoy the vast Liguasan Marsh, located in the tri-boundaries of the provinces of Maguindanao, Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato and reportedly one of the biggest marshlands in Southeast Asia with an estimated area of about 200,000 hectares.

A little distance from the marsh is the plankton-rich 10,000-hectare Buluan Lake where fishpen operators raise bangus and tilapia and where freshwater carp thrive without being fed because the water is almost green with natural fish food.

Roe-filled mudfish almost as large as a man’s limbs and catfish whose belly is pinkish because of the nutritious natural feed they take abound. Black head eels are caught during the season when the marshland reeds flower.

Tens of tons of freshwater fish are harvested from these areas almost every day and much more could be harvested if only the local market could absorb the daily catch.

In fact, the freshwater carp, locally known as “tarok,” is peddled by women and children, especially along the highway in the Maguindanao town of Buluan. In the afternoon, those that are not bought by passing motorists are simply thrown away.

It was during a political caucus in Kidapawan City where I told the President-to-be and his vice presidential candidate Mar Roxas that the countryside, especially Mindanao, has a lot to offer to people living in the big cities.

The only problem is it costs a lot to bring a kilo of freshwater fish or even fresh fruits like rambutan and mangosteen to the markets of the big cities.

It was there where I proposed to him that government, through the agriculture department, should consider a concept which I called the “Philippine Food Skyway” which would basically involve the construction of feeder airports in the key production areas of the country.

Along with the airports, government through the agriculture department should acquire cargo planes which will be operated and managed by the Philippine Air Force under a special program, which would make a round of all of the feeder airports and load perishable products to be brought to areas where they are needed.

While I have not been to most of the islands in the Sulu Archipelago, I would hazard a guess that most of fishermen in the area catch more fish that what their family could consume or what the local market could absorb.

They could catch more but why would they when nobody is going to buy them?

But what if three times a week, a large government cargo plane lands in the feeder airport near their fishing grounds and load the fish to be brought to Metro Manila or even Baguio City?

The effect of this ambitious program would be tremendous.

First, it will provide farmers in the countryside with more income to raise their children and send them to school thus reducing the problem of rural poverty and insurgency.

Second, it will provide people in the big cities with fresh food products at lower cost thus enabling them to stretch their monthly wages to address their family’s other needs.

And third, if there is economic activity and income opportunity in the countryside, rural people who flock to the big cities in search of jobs may just decide to pack up and go back home where the air is clean and the water pure and where there is an opportunity to make more money.

After he was elected President, (I lost in the election for Governor of North Cotabato) I submitted to President Aquino through text message my proposal for the Philippine Food Skyway which he apparently discussed with Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala.

Along with that was the proposal to conduct a summit in Davao City between the food producers of Mindanao and the market vendors’ groups of the big cities in the Visayas and Luzon.

Shortly before the elections of 2013, I met the President in Davao City where we talked about the proposed Philippine Food Skyway among other subjects mainly politics.

I remembered him telling me that Sec. Alcala said that the Philppine Food Skyway was a good idea but that it would entail huge investments on the part of government and was not therefor a priority.

I was disheartened, of course, but I had to accept the fact that the President had so much faith in his agriculture secretary and that Alcala’s recommendation, for the President, was the gospel truth.

Today, as the price of food in the big cities is almost beyond the reach of the urban wage earners, I sometimes ask myself what would have happened had Sec. Alcala recommended to President Aquino the adoption of the “Bridges in the Sky.”

Maybe, Alcala would not even be embroiled in the garlic and onion smuggling scandal because those commodities could well be produced by the Filipino farmers themselves and brought to the market at a lower price through the “Bridges in the Sky.”

(Notes: Cargo plane photo downloaded from Google; this article first appeared in The Manila Times under my Intrepidity column.)