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ACCORDING to the Department of Agriculture in Region 6, the average age of farmers now is 57 years. It’s an ageing labor force and certainly not good for our food security. Worse, enrollment in agriculture-related courses is dwindling. Where does this leave us?
A congressman recently warned that the Philippines was losing at least one percent of its work force in the agricultural sector every year and the country might become fully dependent on food imports in 20 years time if the pattern was not reversed. Here’s one observation: young men and women would rather work in call centers and do odd jobs in fast food chains and department stores than pursue careers in agriculture.
Census conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that from 2013 to 2015, there was a steady decline (average of .53 to 1.39 percent) on the country’s agricultural employment rate. In 2013, there were at least 31.06 million male and female Filipinos involved in agriculture but this shrunk to 29.14 million in 2015. This means that at least 1.92 million Filipinos who used to contribute in food production have passed on or have moved to other forms of livelihood in just two years.
This declining agriculture labor force is being worsened by shrinking agricultural lands due to their conversion into industrial and residential real estates, and the dwindling production capacity of the remaining farmlands due to the damaging effects of climate change. This is very disturbing. We could plunge into a severe food crisis.
We have an oversupply of nurses, teachers, criminologists and information technology professionals and they mostly end up in call centers or they go overseas. On the other hand, the people who toil our soil are rapidly disappearing. We should lose no time reinvigorating our agricultural profession. Government agencies concerned must perk up the interest of the youth to go into farming. How? Perhaps through increased educational subsidies and scholarships for students who want to pursue a career in the agricultural sector.
We should start dismantling the stigma that farming is hard, dirty, financially unrewarding and suited only for the uneducated. In other countries, farmers are highly respected and very well off. If we can modernize our farming industry, too, our farmers will never feel the need to look for other means of livelihood and our country will become really self-sufficient in its food requirement.
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