Farmers Need This! Small Farm Machines Critical In Agriculture

Yesterday, I reached out to two people, one based in Japan and the other a known name in Philippine Agriculture, Arsenio Toto Barcelona, because I needed a small machine to address our problems with weeds in our Sorghum and Soybeans farms.
Toto Barcelona, who owns Harbest, has a Taiwan-made multi-function tiller and cultivator while Japan-based Jun Ocaba offers Japan-surplus models.
I purchased two units of Toto’s model on installment because I badly need these in our operations now.
It is just sad that until today, our Farm Mechanization Agency, PhilMech, had not really effectively addressed the equipment requirements of small farmers.
All that had been turned out all of these years are shredders, choppers, inefficient grains dryers and very expensive electric-powered composting machines.
These are not what the farmers need, in fact, most of these machines distributed by the Dept. of Agriculture are now rusting away in many farm bodegas all over the country.
Actually, kaya namang gawin ng mga Filipino engineers and fabricators ang mga makinang kailangan ng mga magsasaka.
Their problem is they could not compete with the well-connected suppliers of the garbage equipment.
A case in point are the electric-powered composting machines which was allocated P3-B from the Rice Program which are now being given to the LGUs and farmers coops and associations.
“Hindi naman namin kailangan yan at napakadali mag-compost, ipunin mo lang at lagyan ng African Earthworms, may compost ka na wala pang Bastos,” one farmer who received the composting machine told me.
So, the standard in the procurement of equipment today is whether the sponsors of the program will make money or not, never mind if the farmers do not need it.
Hanggat hindi natin nababago ito, magsasayang lang ng pera ang gobyerno at kaming mga nangangailangan ng precise equipment for our farming concerns will just have to rely on imported machinery.
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!