The Profits of I's. What Pinoy rice farmers can learn from ICRISAT

MANILA: I'm worried about the AFTA coming to town in 2015, even if UP Diliman Professor of Asian Studies Eduardo Climaco Tadem is not, even as he quotes a  conclusion of a 2013 joint study by the Asian Development Bank and Southeast Asian Studies that  the Asean Free Trade Area is not going to happen in 2015, that Asean "has no prospect of coming close to (becoming a) single market by the AEC's 2015 deadline – or even by 2020 or 2025" (04 May 2014, inquirer.net). What they mean is that the AFTA is not going to be fully implemented in 2015. That's like saying there are not going to be market earthquakes in the Asean next year, so why worry?

Ah yes, the optimist see the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole! Professor Tadem does not see the donut that I see, even as I also see that we have to cook it before we can eat it.

Because he cannot see the whole, the Professor is not considering the parts that make the whole. So, he echoes former NEDA Director General Cielito Habito who focuses on another part of the whole, noting that instead of narrowing, the gaps between the average incomes between those in the richest and poorest Asean countries are still very wide, worse than 11 times.

Precisely! Fully implemented or not, what are we going to do about the poor rice farmers, now that the AFTA is here? Shall we have the poor always with us?

Thank you, Senator Bongbong Marcos for doing something about it. In February 2014, he said the Philippine government needs to give higher priority to irrigation projects (Jefferson Antiporda, 05 February 2014, manilatimes.net). In April also this year, he said that our farmers need to mechanize their operations, that "mechanization is one of the best and necessary parts in increasing the efficiency of our farmers" (ANN, senate.gov.ph). He says, "We will be competing with Vietnam, Thailand and Korea in rice production. We cannot compete if our style of farming is 1960s or 1970s."

And thank you, Senator JV Ejercito, who is even more blunt about the threat of Vietnamese and Thai rices to Pinoy rice. He says, when the tariff barriers are lifted, "the AFTA will kill the agriculture industry" (Juan Escandor Jr, 21 April 2014, inquirer.net). He is proposing that the government subsidize the farmers. Instead of the huge budget of PhP 60 billion going to poor non-farm families in the Conditional Cash Transfer Program, JV says 25% of the CCT funds or PhP 15 billion can be spent to subsidize fertilizers, upgrade postharvest facilities, and modernize farming systems. We are not ready for AFTA, he says. "I will push to ask the World Trade Organization to extend (or) delay the enforcement of AFTA especially for sugar and rice. We need this because our industry is not prepared for the entry of cheap products from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia."

Yes, Senators Bongbong and JV, our farmers are not ready, but our Department of Agriculture can now learn much from the science of agriculture of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, and not only about irrigation water and mechanization.

Let me show you The Profits of I's (ayes) this time, and tell you people in the public, private, philanthropic and peasant sectors that we need The 7 I's for the poor farmers to rise from poverty; that is to say, the farmers need to:

(1)     Increase yield

(2)     Increase efficiency

(3)     Increase marketable produce

(4)     Increase marketing returns

(5)     Increase marketing opportunities

(6)     Increase size

(7)     Increase beneficiaries.

I got the ideas for the first 4 I's from the big I, ICRISAT; I got the last 3 from economic theory and professional practice.

The first 4 I's I shall now explain based on ICRISAT's experimentations and experiences:

(1)     Increase yield.

The ICRISAT lesson here is: Always plant the new or improved variety. What do Pinoy farmers do? Most of them plant the old. Based in India but also operating in the drylands of the rest of Asia and in Africa, ICRISAT has been researching on how best to farm in water-challenged soils any of its 5 mandate crops: chickpea, peanut, pearl millet, pigeon pea, and sweet sorghum. ICRISAT breeding efforts have produced many high-yielding, pest-resistant and/or drought resistant varieties since its founding in 1972. Another lesson, this time from French Jesuit priest Henri de Laulanie, who invented the System of Rice Intensification: To increase your yield, transplant seedlings when only 12-14 days young, not old ones like these (see image), which for sure will suffer transplanting shock (Wikipedia).

(2)     Increase efficiency.

The ICRISAT lesson here is: Mechanize. Mechanization reduces time and labor and increases accuracy & quality of results in planting, fertilizing, weeding and harvesting. Another ICRISAT lesson: One way to reduce the cost of farming is to practice "micro-dosing" – this is applying fertilizer in very small amounts, that is, bottle-cap full per hill. What do Pinoy farmers do? They apply 12 bags of fertilizer per hectare of rice. Microdosing is tantamount to a saving of at least 5/6 of the usual Pinoy fertilizer application, using only 2 bags instead of 12. At about $ 25/bag, the farmer spends only $ 50 instead of $ 300!

(3)     Increase marketable produce.

The ICRISAT lesson here is: Monitor potential damage. One way to prevent further deterioration is to detect the cause fast, such as the presence of aflatoxin in farm produce. Aflatoxin is carcinogenic. Many crops are affected, including corn, peanut, soybean, cotton, chili etc and can occur before, during and after harvest (S Veera Reddy et al, AFTAorg). ICRISAT scientists have developed the ELISA aflatoxin test kit, which is inexpensive, simple, and rapid. Thus, in Malawi, the ELISA has opened doors to 4,000 farmers to produce high-quality peanuts for export to Europe.

(4)     Increase marketing returns.

The ICRISAT lesson here is: Pursue inclusive market-oriented development. IMOD guarantees that the small farmers and other producers get their just share of the added values along the production to marketing chain. We must make the farmers, through formal and legitimate groupings, the merchants of their own harvests for them to enjoy what the merchants used to enjoy: high prices. This will make their new and improved incomes sustainable.

After the ICRISAT 4, I will add 3 more I's:

(5)     Increase marketing opportunities.

Seemingly reversing the logical sequence, it should be marketing first before production, Dormie del Carmen was telling the rice and corn farmers in La Union last week during our last formal team training session on marketing for farmers under Project ARCCESS, the technology diffusion and enterprise major undertaking of the Department of Agrarian Reform. Why? The DAR farmers asked. She said, you should know what is it that your target consumers want before you produce it. We don't teach them like they used to anymore!

(6)     Increase size

I'm referring to economies of scale, or savings from spending less input cost per unit when a good or service is produced on a wider or bigger scale (investopedia.com). Application: Instead of individual ownership of farm machineries, the coops to which the farmers belong can consolidate them as a single owner, which is precisely what the DAR program of common service facilities has avidly been doing for its agrarian reform beneficiaries. Along the same lines, with our Nagkaisa Multi-Purpose Cooperative in Asingan, Pangasinan, we have been pursuing with the Department of Agriculture the grant of a PhP 6.5 million rice processing complex; we have submitted all the necessary papers, and in fact have signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the DA. Bureaucracy works slowly, or not at all. The small farmers of Asingan will have to wait much longer.

(7)     Increase beneficiaries

To spread the largesse, work with coops. I have been thinking of pursuing all of the above as General Manager of our coop and as a journalist. The Cooperative Development Authority should support all coops worth their millions to be in on this. The coop, any coop, should be run in order for each member to enjoy increased yields, increased efficiency, increased marketable produce, increased marketing returns, increased marketing opportunities, increased size, and increased beneficiaries. If all those I's were implemented, surely the poor farmers and other producers in any country in Africa and Asia will be emancipated from poverty.

Which makes me The Prophet of I's. Will the Cooperative Development Authority, Department of Agriculture and Department of Agrarian Reform in my country make my prophecy come true?

Regarding this matter, as a coop crusader, I shall have the first and last words: I shall be coming out as Editor of a new news magazine later this month of May. Readers are welcome, subscribers are encouraged. Threat or no threat from the AFTA, together, we shall overcome!

This is a very slightly different version from
"The Prophet of I's. What ICRISAT can teach Pinoy rice farmers"
that I blogged earlier today (11 May 2014, iCRiSAT Watch , blogspot.com).
Only the titles differ, as they are both a play of words of each other, a serendipitous find.
I want to know if "prophet" is more or less popular than "profit" or "profits" – religion or economics?