The country’s present food crisis is a reflection of a bigger crisis, a visiting member of the House of Representatives told barangay captains at a forum in Baguio City last week.
BY LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 22, July 6-12, 2008
BAGUIO CITY (246 kms north of Manila) – The country’s present food crisis is a reflection of a bigger crisis, a visiting Liberal Party official and Quezon representative told baranggay (village) captains at a forum here last week.
In his talk on the current rice crisis at the City Travel Hotel here, Rep. Lorenzo Tañada III of the 4th District of Quezon said the food crisis reflects a crisis in governance. “The Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration had the chance to govern for nine years, yet it wasted the opportunity to actually turn things around for the poor farmers and fisher folk,” he said.
Tañada criticized the GMA administration’s program for the agriculture sector as “top-down, lacking grassroots consultation.” He said he would rather increase the farmers’ income by doing away with costly fertilizers and pesticides. This way, he said, farmers would end up earning more.
GMA launched her FIELDS (Fertilizers; Irrigation/Infrastructure; Extension Services; Loans; Dryers; and Seeds) program at the National Food Summit in early April. In her visit to Abra for the regional peace assembly, the president said that in her administration’s agricultural productivity program, she earmarked P10 million ($239,120.04 at last April’s average exchange rate of $1:P41.82) for Cordillera farm-to-market roads, besides allocations for a bridge in a remote Abra town.
According to Tañada, however, the farmers’ dependence on high-priced chemical inputs defeats the government’s supposed purpose of fighting poverty. “They (farmers) just produce more but they also spend more on chemicals that eventually destroy the land,” he said.
Tañada also assailed the Arroyo administration’s lack of priority for agrarian reform. He said a land-use bill is pending in Congress because lawmakers in the Lower House also have blood relations with elective public officials in the local government units, and that the latter’s interests are served by their having the authority to classify lands.
Early last month, Arroyo certified as urgent House Bill No. 4077 which seeks a five-year extension for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). It also provides for an allocation of P100 million ($2.20 million at the July 4 exchange rate of $1:P45.45). Northern Dispatch / Posted by(Bulatlat.com)
