Thursday, October 20, 2005

Entrepreneurial Farmer

Ambrosio R. Villorente

Will Quality Statistics Modernize Agriculture?

It seems that the Sanitary Inspectors of Kalibo, Aklan had not visited Jollibee at Gaisano, Kalibo for a long time to check if sanitation is observed.
I happened to be there last Sunday, October 16. It was about 6:00 o’clock in the afternoon to have a simple snack. Due to the call of nature, I went to the toilet. It was closed with a sign at the door appearing to be for disabled person. What a deception!
I was at the same place one month ago and that place (toilet) was already closed. I asked the waiter where is the CR? He told me “it is closed for it is out of order for many weeks already.”
Last Sunday, October 16, the same CR was closed and worst, a sign to show it is for disabled person was attached with the door. I asked the waiter if that CR is opened. The reply? “Out of order.”
Maybe, the LGU Kalibo does not require restaurant or eatery like Jollibee to have its own toilet. If not, it is a grand defiance of a just requirement.
-o-
The Bolanteros of Kalibo will be better off if they can develop the Bagsakan Center at the vicinity of Oyo Torong into a profitable market. The development only requires some patience and dedication to encourage their customers to come to Bagsakan Center to buy their goods at reasonable prices. The customers will form the habit to go there if they realized to be at their advantage.
Let Toting Reyes be used principally by pedestrians and vehicles anytime and any day of the week.
-o-
The Philippines’ external debt as of 2005 is US $56 billion, according to MS. Loida D. Cruz, Acting Deputy Director, Bangko Sentral Ng Pilipinas. If there are now 85 million Filipinos, each Filipino, one day old and above, is indebted of US $658.83 or P36,894.48 at an exchange rate of US $1.00 to P56.00. This is foreign debt alone. Filipinos are still indebted locally of even more than the foreign debt. The local debt is P3 trillion plus.
Asked at how much and when will the Philippines government stop borrowing, Ms. Cruz has no categorical answer. She spoke of continually borrowing for viable investment. But does the government really put borrowed money into viable investment?
-o-
The Philippines is celebrating the month of October as National Statistics month with the Theme: “Modernizing Agriculture and Fishery With Quality Statistics.” It is hard to imagine how can high quality statistics modernize agriculture. What do we mean by quality statistics? It is said, figure does not lie and should our statisticians use figure to deceive, then this is not only poor quality statistics, but figures use to deceive people, like the use of numbers to defeat opponents in an election or the use of numbers to inflate a production figures like rice, corn, sugar and coconut annually.
There is only true statistics that will reflect or portray the real situation such as data on production expenses and income. There is no high quality statistics that can modernize agriculture and fishery.
What can modernize fishery and agriculture are high quality farmers and fisherfolks, well fit technology and production facility. Aklan for instance believes it has a modern agriculture. But it is not, even if we have the best agriculture university, the Aklan State University here.
Does Aklan have a soil laboratory where their soils are analyze for fertilizer application? None. So, farmers just apply fertilizer to their farms without any idea if their crops are underdosed or overdosed of plant nutrients.
A series of fish kills happened in Kalibo, New Washington and some other towns of Aklan. Nobody knew what caused those fish kills. There is no laboratory to use in the analysis. Problems in the fishpond are not identified. Fishpond operators only guest the probable cause, no certainty.
Water in Aklan are wasted while palay and other crops run dry. Irrigation system is by gravity, so antiquated to store water and release to the farms when needed. Millions of gallons of water drain to the sea everyday unused.
It is so lamentable that with this veritable state of agriculture in the Philippines, our top government officials has allotted huge amount of money to modernize agriculture. Where did it go? It went to the politicians to win the elections. Hello Garci? /MP mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com

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