In this modern times, even six year-old children can farm. They can collect eggs from the chickens, they can harvest crops and they can plant new crops in just a simple click of a device called a mouse. Of course I am talking about the sensational applications that has gripped the online community of Facebook™ (which was sparsely populated a few years back).
Farming has always been part of the Filipino culture. Our ancestors were very eager and happy farmers who lived off their lives farming their own land. They were a happy bunch of mountain people. Going a few years in the future (give or take twenty generations or two) we see the hope of the youth in re-establishing and awakening the agricultural prowess that has once characterized our nation.
Imagine if those children and teenagers who are point and clicking their mouses real farmers. Come to think of it, we'll have 600,000 farmers now all working (some even on night shifts). With the government limiting agricultural budget and the country's depressing state of importation, why wouldn't we give our attention to the problem?
The proposed budget of the government for this year has increased about one eight in percentage and the allocation for agriculture is 27 billion. Only half of the budget for defense. Last year, the budget for agriculture was slashed of its rightful 1.1 billion. Where did it go I don't know.
For now the country's hope for a sustaining economy anchored on agriculture and rice sufficiency is bleak. Not unless the people at my left, right and back in this cafe start thinking of farms, farmers and planting. The real ones. /KP
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