Reviving interest in agriculture

BEYOND ELLIPTICAL
By Rose Marie de la Cruz

Former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cielito Habito (now a columnist for Inquirer) wrote recently about the youth and agriculture and why it is so difficult to attract young people to go into farming (not as farm laborer) —  a path where they could become their own bosses and where their creativity and curiosity for technology can be put to good use, for themselves, their families and the country’s food sufficiency dream.

Old farmers– with the average farmers’ age now beyond 50 or nearing senior citizen– often complain that their children are not interested in farming and look at this profession with disdain because of the hard work and its inability to lift the family out of poverty.

After graduating from high school– should they opt for a college degree– they would only enroll as a last resort in agriculture, fishery or forestry (AFF) course because 1) there are lots of scholarships being offered; and 2) it is the easiest way to finish a degree and start looking for an office job.

Regardless if the promotion in the corporate world is a long hard climb, the youth would rather enjoy the comforts of airconditioned offices, a feeling of affluence (even if just imaginary) and influence and getting dressed with respectability, not smelling earthly and sundrained.

But as data from the Commission on Higher Education reveal, enrollment in AFF had continuously risen between 2010 and 2020 from 63,471 to 115,458 while other higher education degrees fell almost across the board, Habito reported.

He explained that in 2016 (when the 2012 implementation of the K-12 basic education curriculum reduced the number of potential college freshmen because those who had completed four years of high school stayed on for two more years.

Yet, he said, “we cannot belittle common casual observations that farmers’ offspring now rarely want to take over from their parents in an occupation they perceived had failed to bail their families from poverty.”

And as mentioned above, those who enrolled in a college agriculture course do not necessarily end up working in a farm or in the AFF sector but end up in unrelated professions as they only used agriculture as an easy way to get a degree because of the abundance in scholarships for AFF.

Habito cited UP Los Banos which lowered the cutoff scores for entry for BS Agriculture applicants compared with other courses in arts and sciences.

But there are encouraging model cases of successful youth who entered and practiced agriculture such as those of Benzone Kennedy Sepe who Habito visited in his farm in Barangay Kapatagan, Digos City in Davao del Sur who experimented on growing apples out of curiosity, which led him to enroll in BS Agriculture at the Davao del Sur State College even as he inspires young budding farmers with his vlog to think out of the box.

“More recently, I was heartened to hear young Denny de Guzman declare how his practicum work at the Jopat Integrated Farm in Mangaldan, Pangasinan had solidified his choice of agriculture as his favored career,” Habito narrated.

Habito cited the importance of learning sites for agriculture (LSAs) that the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) has been certifying for over 10 years now. “I see them as valuable instruments for drawing more young people into agriculture. LSAs are model farms that can serve as venues for hands-on training of farmers and farmworkers. But many feel underutilized in this regard, as funds to support capacity building for farmers, which is the devolved responsibility of local government units, are very limited, especially when governors and mayors fail to prioritize agriculture in their local development plans and programs.”

I have personally visited such a learning site in Nueva Ecija and wrote about the one in Batangas and in Mindanao, where I was so impressed at how they have packaged agriculture so attractively to become both a learning and tourism destination (for families, schools, offices and among friends).

Recent trends have promoted agriculture as hobby farming and urban gardening (to serve fresh food from the soil to the table.

“Even without conducting formal training for farmers, they would already be doing a great service to society if the farm visits and practicums they host convince more young people to choose agriculture as a favored career, the way Sepe and De Guzman have,” Habito stressed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *