RESILIENT agriculture, agri-food system, sustainable agriculture, climate smart or resilient agriculture, balanced fertilization, agri-industrialization, digital agriculture, crop diversification, farm mechanization, regenerative agriculture, etc., are all buzzwords that simply mean promoting the modernization and development of agriculture in an environmentally-friendly manner to make the economic activity sustainable.
Too many of such big words lately has led to confusion as to the appropriate direction that agriculture should take. But there is really nothing new except for the person or institution coining those terms to generate greater media and public attention and hopefully generate more resources for their proposed projects.
As noted, the bottomline objective is to make agriculture modern and efficient without sacrificing the benefits that can be derived from existing natural resources at the expense of future generations. The problem with buzzword formulation, however, is that little attention is given to the critical importance of good governance and leadership.
Dabbling in governance or institutional issues might elicit nasty reactions from the powers-that-be. This might come in the form of being declared persona non grata or being denied funding for one’s project proposal.
During the height of discussions on whether the Vietnamese-produced African swine fever (ASF) vaccine being promoted by the Department of Agriculture (DA) was effective or not, a number of veterinary medicine expert friends at UP Los Baños refused to come out in the open against the vaccine for fear of being castigated by DA officials. But privately, they knew that it was ineffective and could possibly do more harm than good. Their apprehension has been proven correct as we hardly now hear the DA massively propagating its use.
The problem confronting our agriculture is not the “what” but the “how” to properly execute the good ideas being advocated. We know what to do as demonstrated by the existence of so many buzzwords meant to solve our agricultural problems. There are tons of written and presentation materials explaining what these ideas will entail. What is not being told to us by the proponents of these highfalutin ideas is how we can successfully implement them to make a real dent on the problems of agriculture.
This is where the real challenge lies. It is easy to identify what reforms must be instituted in agriculture, some of which have even found articulation from current DA officials. But going beyond pronouncements, declarations or media/press releases inevitably requires real leadership and good governance.
Just take the case of the simple completion of the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture, otherwise called the Farmers and Fishery Registry. This is the list of farmers and fishers who are truly eligible for government assistance. Its completion would have triggered a series of governance reforms that would improve delivery of services. Sadly, up to now, the registry has not been completed, more than 10 years since it started.
The initial effort was sponsored not by a DA head but by then-Budget secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, who forced DA to undertake the project. That was in 2012 and Butch’s reason was that he wanted to ensure that only eligible agricultural stakeholders benefited from government support. He knew that the ayudas were mostly being administered through a tightly-knit patronage system controlled by politicians.
Knowing the importance of this innovation, I pushed hard for its completion during my tenure in DA. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful due to bureaucratic resistance.
I foresaw that with a robust Farmers and Fishery Registry, the DA could implement more reforms. For instance, instead of distributing in-kind assistance, the department could deliver the cash equivalent via ATMs to eligible farmers and fishers, as currently practiced in Thailand.
This would minimize corruption in the bidding for the procurement of production inputs (fertilizer, seeds, fuel, etc.) and also allow farmers/fishers the freedom to choose the inputs they think are effective. As a result, they would no longer blame the government for distributing poor-quality products.
It would also encourage local producers of fertilizers, seeds and other inputs to participate in the market, knowing that farmers now had the money to procure products from them directly, boosting the local economy.
Another possible benefit of a robust Farmers and Fishery Registry is that one could geotag the properties of eligible beneficiaries through the use of drones or satellites. This would allow up-to-date monitoring of cropping activities. Damage from typhoons or other natural disasters can be easily calculated, resulting in faster compensation of the beneficiaries.
In turn, regularly monitoring the properties would encourage banks to extend loans to farmers and fishers as the real-time field data significantly reduces lending risks. The entry of more private companies offering insurance coverage to the farmers would also be encouraged by more accurate knowledge of the situation in farms.
But the reality of governance in the country is that good intentions alone are not enough to move the bureaucracy to the right direction. There are elements within the institution that immensely benefit from the current setup that introducing changes will certainly meet stiff resistance, even to the extent of lobbying hard for the removal of person who is trying to reform the system, as what was experienced by a close friend.
A clear lesson for proponents of agriculture buzzwords is that they should determine at the outset whether their ideas would upset existing operations in the implementing agency. If so, they will have to settle for the reality that their ideas will never gain traction outside of official media conferences or press releases.
Unless they are able, by a miracle, to institute good governance and leadership in the local agriculture scene, they might as well consider their ideas as part of what William Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth: “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
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