Mindanao and the country as a whole must rein in its craving for imports and push food production activities in the countryaside to jumpstart the economic recovery after the COVID 19 Pandemic.
While news of the availability of vaccines against COVID 19 has bouyed the spirits of our people that relief from the pandemic will come soon, the task to propel the economic recovery is the most challenging task now.
As our planners prepare to craft the country’s economic recovery plan, let me just share my thoughts generated from actual experiences on the ground.
We face two biggest challenges today and these are:
1. Unemployment. Thousands of medium and small establshments, especially those in the service and tourism sectors closed down. Added to that, a huge number of Overseas Filipino Workers are coming home from countries whose economy was also adversely affected by the Pandemic.
2. Access to Food Supply. The unavoidable consequence of unemployment is hunger. Instead of spending precious dollar to import food, the country must start a massive local production program nationwide. We cannot and should not rely on imported supplies because with the current crisis, each nation will ensure that there is available food for their people.
Given these immediate problems, there is only one sector right now which will immediately be able to provide immediate answers – agriculture and fisheries.
Activities in this sector could provide immediate relief but there are very important adjustments that our policy makers must undertake.
1. Give the agriculture and fisheries sector an opportunity to recover by reducing the entry of imports so that it could create more jobs and local processing enterprises.
Massive rice importation has reduced the country’s rice production from 93% of the total national requirements to only 86% now which means that fewer farmers plant rice now which in effect led to loss of jobs for farm workers and less raw materials for animal feeds which in turn has a domino effect on poultry and livestock.
The unabated importation of rice, chicken and pork even when local cold storages are overflowing with supplies is hurting the sectors which provide jobs and income to local businessmen.
If this is done, jobs and income earning opportunities will be opened up in the rural areas by displaced service and tourism entrepreneurs and returning OFWs who still have little money to ijnvest.
Agriculture exports should be pushed to bring in fresh money and restrictive export policies like the ban on the export of mature coconuts should be thrashed.
2. Development focus and priorities must be tweaked. Some of our economic planners are still talking about investing more on the ambitious Build, Build, Build Program.
It is a good program but I don’t believe it will yield immediate economic benefits, except perhaps a few thousand jobs.
Instead of the massive infrastructure projecs, funds must be refocused now on smaller and quicker to complete projects which would have an immediate impact on the economy.
Farm to Market Roads and Bridges, Ice Plants, Blast Freezers and Cold Storages, small renewable irrigation projects and easily accessible credit, and I mean EASILY ACCESSIBLE, could bring agriculture and fisheries back to life and in the process realize earnings and generate income.
In the past, when I was still Agriculture Secretary, I was ridiculed for saying that the Philippines and the Filipino farmer and fisherman could produce enough food for the country.
I still hang on to that belief and I am willing to be subjected to ridicule again.
In my many travels in the countryside, especially in Mindanao, I feel sad seeing the untapped resources of the country, huge production areas without roads and bridges and vast fishing grounds where large Tunas are preserved using ice in ice-candy wrappers.
All that is needed is for economic development planners is to realize that the opening of the local market to excessive imports and neglecting local producers in the name of Free Market and Globalization has been thrashed by the COVID 19 pandemic which disrupted the supply chain.
The best formula is to support local production because it creates jobs, generates income and uses available raw resources.
Believe me, I move around, I touch the ground, I feel the pulse and I hear the cries and whispers of our people.
#WeCanFeedOurOwnPeople!
#DevelopmentFromTheGroundUp!
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
(This video material was produced using a video material taken by Mayette Tudlas yesterday in Barangay Baylanan, Talakag, Bukidnon using an Android phone. To reach the area, we had to travel 20 kilomefers of really bad roads and people said I was the first Cabinet-level official to reach the area.)
https://fb.watch/aLgj6Nu-7l/
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