Tuesday, October 10, 2007 Editorials: Risk-taking in agriculture
THE Department of Agriculture (DA) has announced the plan to initiate a program for a third cropping season for rice production, a venture that has not been tried before and is therefore innovative.
The aim is to increase the country’s rice production and avert a shortage in cereal supply.
A steadily increasing populace is obviously the impelling force behind the move.
Planning
But while anticipatory planning on the part of our top agriculture department officials is commendable, it is at the same time fraught with threats of failure and risks of losses for participating farmers.
A third cropping for rice, for example, needs careful planning, special technical inputs, as well as capital investments, to implement.
The plan is to insert the third cropping season in-between the traditional two—the dry season from May to October and the wet season from November to April.
The DA expects the third cropping period “to increase the rice yield to 20 percent.”
Input
In Central Visayas where the third cropping season or pang-agpas has already been implemented starting last month, DA 7 Regional Director Eduardo Lecciones said that “they aim to plant rice and corn on 2,500 hectares of land.”
The DA believes that the program will encourage our hardworking and industrious farmers to devote more time and work extra-hard to improve their family income as well as contribute to the assurance of food supply for our people.
But the DA did not talk of safety nets.
Risk
Unless government supports the farmers with material inputs, the risk of losses on their part would be rather high.
With the country’s weather condition not fixed and predictable, anything can happen during the cropping period.
The investment will become a matter of luck.
This is what the whole three-cropping period is actually all about.
In a social environment that has suddenly become gravely conducive to birth without control, one needs to anticipate future events with fool-proof plans from our leaders.
Thus, the risk is high in the program, too.
It is, to say the least, a condition that generally needs the intervention of the all-powerful hand of the Lord.
