Modernizing the agricultural sector - why cant we?

It is more fun criticizing

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)

Saudi Agriculture

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.   

Attaining Food Security - the problem is not barren land but barren minds

It is more fun criticizing


 
Rizal Philippines  |  April 28, 2014

Barren minds, not barren land

In the talkback program of ANC with Tina Monzon Palma, the guest from  Mr GayoMFI talks about the problem in attaining food security is not the barren land, but barren minds of farmers.  With only 5 years of schooling on the average, they are less likely to improve on their methods and adopt modern farm technologies.  The resources are available:  credit, seeds, fertilizer, irrigation.   Yet our farm production, productivity has remained the same. Compare that with Israel that has barren land, sand/desert and yet grow plenty of vegetables which they export

Or even Batangas farmers who are rich because they plant 4 hectares of produce on 1 hectare of land?