Villar says effective strategies will boost farmers' gain

Simply employing the effective strategies and techniques in farming will improve the earnings of farmers and will separate an award-winning and profitable farmer from an ordinary one, said Senator Cynthia A. Villar.

Villar, vice chair of the Senate Agriculture and Food committee, noted that a farmer who is a Gawad Saka awardee earns 50,000 pesos per hectare per month compared to an ordinary farmer who earns 4,500 pesos only.

Talking about "Capacity-Building Programs for Farmers and Fisherfolks to Promote Agri-Business," Villar expressed her belief that continuing education and training is the key to improve the income of our farmers that would eventually spur agricultural growth.

Villar was the Guest Speaker in the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) Smart Agriculture Forum with the theme, "Empowering Farmers and Fishermen through Cooperative Organizations or Corporate Farming, Capacity Building, Technical and Financing Support" at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.

The senator underscored the need to teach small farmers capacity-building strategies and approaches to be able to operate their small farms as agri-business and make them competent and competitive in it.

?Based on studies, she related that among the barriers that keep Filipino farmers from being more successful are lack of technical expertise, inadequate access to socialized credit and lack of mechanization and financial literacy or business sense.

"That is what we focused on, we helped remove those barriers," said Villar, also chair of the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development.

She said farmers and fisherfolks remain among the poorest in the Philippines, an agricultural country. She said twenty seven percent of our population are still living below the poverty line, and 40 percent of them are farmers and fisherfolks.

She noted that poverty incidence among farmers at 36.7 percent is higher than the average for the whole country, which stood at 27.9 percent based on latest available figures from National Statistics Coordinating Board (NSCB)," she said.

?"Thus, if we really wanted to make a significant mark in poverty reduction, helping them is the best way to start since about two-thirds of the country's population is involved, directly or indirectly, in the agriculture sector. Increasing food production and farm productivity alone cannot move them permanently out of poverty," also said Villar.

According to the senator, she continues to closely monitor the agricultural mechanization efforts of Department of Agriculture (DA) and its allied agencies.

"It is good that among the priorities of our new DA Secretary Emmanuel "Manny" Piñol is the fast and effective agricultural technology-transfer to farmers and farming communities all over the country. That will of course also redound to agri-business," said Villar.

?Because of this, Villar said the strategy they adopted involved educating and training the farmers first by giving the affordable or free access to agri-related training and courses; encouraging and equipping them to be agri-entrepreneurs or start their own agri-business; and removing barriers to their success and development. "I believe that is adequate capacity-building or enhancement already," said Villar.