This post was amazed by a video on Saudi Arabia modernizing its agriculture. Their agri contributes about $18.00 billion to their GDP. Who woud think that this could happen to a country largely covered by desert?
May be Saudi leaders saw that they could not be too dependent on oil exports and coulld not dependent on agri imports
It employed several techniques much known to our leaders in achieving such self sufficiency and surplus
1. Water
1. Tapping aquifers
2. Desalination plants
2. Helping farmers
1. Interest free loans
2 Technical assistance
3. Massive investments in agriculture and technologies (about $20 billion)
Why cant we achieve the same level of sufficiency and modernization. We have some of the best schools in agriculture: UPLB and CLSU (2/3 of CLSU faculty are doctorate) Our Sec of Agriculture is no less than the President. We have plenty of rains and water in the Philippines. We do not need desalination plants like Saudi
Why are we having shortages in onions, garlic, and lately in eggs and oh yes sugar and rice. This is an embarrassment (All tallks lang during the campaign to modernize agriculture? More passion needed
I met Dr. Tito Cantado who owns a company that produces Noni Juice and he bewailed the state of agriculture world wide (as he served as consultant of FAO. The focus on subsistence farming
and traditional farming are roadblocks to agricultural productivity Corporate farming, leases to agricultural lands under land reform (as what DOLEfil is doing at Gensan
Let us wake up men.
