6
REACH – September 2013
OPPORTUNITIES FOR FARMERS?
by Marciano A. Paroy, Jr.
Mang Inggo, 55, of Casigayan, has always been cultivating his inherited farmland since
he was a little boy when he would tag along with his parents as they would visit the
fields. Raised as a farmer, he never had the inclination to acquire formal education. The
future for him then was rather bleak – he never imagined himself to be wearing a threepiece suit one day. Early on, he accepted that his life was destined to be spent doing
the back-breaking tasks of a farmer.
And he is now living that future.
But there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, Mang Inggo and his peers remain to be our
biggest hope in the overall direction towards meaningful development. The farming
industry and its ally – agribusiness – maintain their mark as the real springboard from
which we might eventually attain that long-hoped-for industrialization.
“We were almost there,” Mang Inggo claimed when asked about the country’s dream to
be industrialized. But that perception, of course, may just be remnants of the Marcos
era. In fact, when a die-hard Ramos fan was asked, he said, “We were there already in
the early and mid 90’s but we nosedived after that, didn’t we?”
It depends on what era and under whose administration you grew up in.
But it is a fact that not a single administration ignored the potent force of agriculture as
a catalyst for development. Vision, mission, goals and objectives are simply recast.
Programs and projects are simply re -packaged using different wordings. Implementers
are sent to training activities where they did not really learn something new.
But the sincerity, the commitment and the dedication of agriculturists and extension
people have remained un-changed.
And, all the while, Mang Inggo has always been there – tilling, buying inputs,
harvesting, calculating losses and gains. Waiting.
To wait is som ewhat innate among farmers. Most of them have not always been known
to go out and seek for something that could benefit them. They would rather stay in the
farm than reach out and establish linkage. This explains why a well-meaning agency
conducting an extension program finds itself as a source of curiosity for farmers who
have the automatic notion “What are these people up to? Kitan tayo man.”
This line of thinking is what the Farmers Information and Technology Services (FITS)
Center aims to change. Situated at the Kalinga-Apayao State College, under the
umbrella of the Research and Extension Office, the Center is intended to be a
depository of information and technology that the farmer can use not only to
complement and improve his existing practices, but also to inspire him to expand his
farming activities.