Of Rice, Farmers, and Agriculture Funds

Originally: THE REAL SCORE FROM AN ENLIGHTENED TRADER & MORE CONCERNS ABOUT THE IRR
by:  Paulino Jose Misa

(This was PM'd to me by a "truly concerned" trader friend)
As you probably know, next week is the start of the harvest season for rice in Regions 1, 2 & 3. This means now is the time when farmers need to start planting the seeds for transplanting in Oct and for traders to start buying from farmers.
I have just spent the whole day with farmers from Regions 1 & 2 and was surprised to hear complaints about the low prices of palay even from those with high yields. It turns out your instincts were more spot-on than mine.
I asked the farmers about their true costs to determine their break-even, and got the following figures. You probably know these figures already, but thought of sharing them with you nonetheless to help with your analysis.
Figures are in PHP per kg of palay:
PLANTING
Seeds (hybrid) = 1.25
Labor (to help transplant the seedlings) = 1.05
[One needs around 12 persons @350/day to transplant seedlings on a hectare of land. Six is actually enough for a day’s work, I am told, but local labor tends to work deliberately slow in order to force the farmer to pay for another day’s work and to provide meals for the day. As a result, a farmer tends to hire more laborers to finish earlier. There is no difference between wages for one day or half-day.]
Fertilizer = 1.00
[This assumes 4 applications per cycle @P1,000/ha/application: before transplanting and flooding, during the vegetative stage, when panicles are forming, when palay start ripening.More might be spent depending on color of leaves, type of soil, health of palay, etc.]
Pesticides = 0.30
[This assumes 300/ha/application x 4 apps per cycle against the usual pests - leafhopper, bugs, maggot, skipper, crickets. More might be spent depending on pests.]
Total expenses during planting = 3.60/kg
HARVEST
Labor = 1.75
[20 persons are needed for 1/2 day of harvesting work per ha @ 350/person/day. As in the planting season, half this number is enough, but farmers can not afford delayed harvesting so they’d rather hire more to finish harvesting quicker. Laborers charge the same rate even for half day work.]
DRYING
Hauling of “wet” palay = 0.20
[This is the cost to haul the wet palay from the farm to a drying center. Loading rate is 4/sack and 4/sack for unloading. A sack =40kg for wet palay, 50kg for dry. Thus, a 4,000kg harvest per ha = 100 sacks when wet, 80 when dry. Handling rate is halved for provinces that use 25-kg sacks.]
Drying fee = 3.00
[This assumes the use of drying machines. Rate is reduced by 0.50 if the drying center buys the hulls (husks). Rate can also be halved if drying is done under the sun, but a farmer still needs to pay min of 1.50/kg for labor to lay the palay and turn them over at regular intervals, use of a drying area, and loading and unloading. It is now illegal to dry palay on roads.]
Transport (farm to drying center) = 0.25 .
[Standard rate is 10/sack x 100 sacks / 4,000kg. This is just to the drying center. Another 0.20 needs to be spent to transport the dried palay to a separate warehouse. Note that a 10.00/sack rate is normally for farms along farm-market roads. Rate is usually doubled for farms far from roads or when tricycles are used. Additional hauling expense might also be incurred.]
Total expense during harvest (incl drying) = 5.20
Total break-even = 8.80
Add: 20,000 minimum living expense allowance for the farmer for 4 mos. This is equivalent to 5.00/kg
Revised break-even = 13.80
[I was informed that the DA assumes a break-even of 12/kg. The farmers said the DA is ignorant of the actual field costs of labor. 14/kg seems to be a more realistic break-even.]
[At an NFA buying price of P18/kg, dry, CIF NFA, the gain of the farmer becomes 3.75/kg — since he incurs additional cost of 0.45 to haul his palay to the NFA warehouse. This converts to 15,000 if the farmer continues to yield only 4t/ha. This amount is just enough to cover cost of planting for the next season. He still needs to borrow for his own family requirements and to finance harvest.]
I have no way of confirming these numbers, but who am I to argue with the farmers themselves. I was with farmers whose yields vary from 8-12 tons/ha. Yet they too complain that the low cost of palay has forced them to reduce personal expenses or reduce some farming inputs (which consequently affect yield). I immediately thought I ought to confess to you my error.
I also discovered that about 60% of the farmers in the co-ops we contract with are under tenancy arrangements, which means at least 30% of harvest go to the landowners. In some areas, another 5% go to “people’s taxes.”

MY RESPONSE:
Thanks bro! I'm really glad you have an open mind about the issue 🙂 Would that our trader/legislators would be as concerned as you!
As you yourself can see, the farmers are really not getting all that much of even a nowhere near fair deal for the risk and effort they incur. The problem is that the farmers are always the whipping boys even if they are not actually the ones responsible for high rice prices.
It is the system by which the cartels have always controlled everything downstream including the NFA that is rotten. It is really a thankless, daunting, near impossible job for anyone wit the best intentions tasked to fix it. The DA needs to take the bull by its horns and finally set the pace for agriculture instead of simply catering to and following the lead of conflicted legislators.
Frankly, would you agree that even if traders HALVED their margins and gave it to the farmers, they would still get by BETTER than the farmers and at least have a PROFITABLE business, albeit not the accustomed hand over fist?
Certainly, there are enlightened traders who do try to at least be kinder than the cartels BUT they really can't make much of a dent on the overall picture. They are as much caught in the current as everyone else.
On the other hand, you can't change everything in a day. It has to be done step by tortuous step, in the PROPER sequence and in a manner, which everyone can keep in step with, otherwise the ever-present wise guys will just figure out how to do their usual thing and everything will again be for naught.
Take the P5B for mechanization. It is really not that simple.
Yes, mechanization would make a major difference if implemented PROPERLY. BUT it is not just a matter of bringing in the machines even if they were simply to be given away, AGAIN to the delight of the businessmen & "smart" government officials who would do the procurement.
In the first place, what about all those displaced workers who know nothing else to do? What would become of them? They might even sabotage those machines!
Secondly, what about proper operation, repair & maintenance?
Simply importing all this equipment from China which no one knows how to properly operate, maintain, repair and where to buy spare parts will only junk them the minute something breaks.
But of course, the usual suspects would all be salivating at how to get their hands on P5B to care much about anything else, wouldn't they? Would I be wrong to suspect that some people already have a plan how to supply them ASAP? 🙂
And as usual, the traders are on the ALL-WIN side while even if some farmers might gain on the one hand, a bigger majority will lose suddenly lose their already meager income (not entirely a bad thing IF they can be directed to a more profitable livelihood).
While the farmers might earn slightly more because of the increase in production, this will also be tempered by a drop in prices at the farmgate although predictably not that much at the wholesale/retail level.
How nice to be a trader!
Thus, rather than actually invest immediately on mechanization, it would make much more sense to instead EMPOWER the farmers to afford the cheaper ones which will allow the proper supply, distribution, service & spare parts channels that these machines would need in the long run to be set up in the meantime.
This can be done by eliminating the 2 biggest concerns of the farmer: having enough money to plant the crop & being properly insured against calamities. Just eliminating these 2 concerns would immediately tend to raise production. The money they would then normally have to save for these could be used by the farmers to buy at least the more affordable machines on their own.
That is why the PROPER SEQUENCE is of utmost importance.

Somebody Has to Pay the Bill

by Gil Calderon Utanes

03092019

In a desire to know
Talking sense can attract needed change
But to them to whom knowledge fails
Obstinately choose, a phony legend
Fanatic devotion to discredited myth

In their passionate outbursts, clear words
Weaving a tapestry of choice interpretations
Words that outline venom and cunning
Lies of ignominy

Assertions without regard
For careful consideration
At the expense of a sovereign country
Of a self-determining people

Being accustomed to animal pleasures
They consume and destroy
More so, do not produce
Their pleasures tied, to a using Party

Keeping in step to preserve fiction
And a false stability
Is rather be trash
Frustrated but cowed

Some time all the same
When debt calls
Someone has to pay
The demanding bill

For a future owed
That deprives the children of truth
That burdens them With the agonies of pain
Be proud!

What Rice Farmers Need

by Paulino Jose Misa

While farmers are apprehensive about the implementation of the Rice Tariffication Act, assuring a support price as the main pillar of the IRR does not seem quite as reassuring as focusing on other provisions might be.
This is such an uninspired trader-centric orientation that is like putting a band-aid on a gash that needs stitches.
Yes, price is the traditional "bottom line" that success or failure is measured by but mainly focusing on it hardly addresses the true burdens the farmers must shoulder. We must jump out of the age old "kalakaran" box we have gotten so used to and try something new.
It would seem that focusing on LOWERING THE PRODUCTION COSTS and a careful study of the tariffs rates and how they would be balanced and applied would actually be the real key to a beneficial implementation of the law rather than basically relying on the simplistic setting of a set buying price.
By simply lowering the production costs, the single biggest threat to the farmers - being undercut by cheap imports - could be virtually eliminated in a relatively short period of time.
And this would surely also surely result in the INCREASE in hectarage and production which would be the true road to a self-sufficiency we must, but cannot believe we can ever, attain.
The practical view would really have to be that we must somehow be able to COMPETE with the price of imported rice instead of simply relying on artificial government market subsidies, a sure road to disaster.
If other countries can do it, is there really any reason why we can't except for lack of vision and appropriate action?
But where to start?
What actually would to be the greatest, most practical and effective single measure that the DA could focus on is to use the funds generated from the tariffs to provide FREE SEEDS and FERTILIZERS to the rice farmers, not as almost like an afterthought mentioned in passing but as THE main pillar of the program.
This would provide a multitude of benefits that would far exceed what a one-dimensional price-support and rice buying program, which still places most of the risk & burden on the farmer, could ever accomplish.
This would immediately hit so many birds with one stone that even a few billion pesos invested in this to start with would immediately make a huge difference. Proceeds from the tariffs could then make this a permanent policy.
Basically, the idea is to take much of the burden and uncertainty of rice cultivation from the farmer and spread it out among ALL the stakeholders to the benefit of EVERYONE.
One of the main reasons for diminishing interest in planting rice is the relatively costly recurring investment required for every planting. This is money that could go to better education and a higher standard of living.
It is also the main reason why farmers in places that are regularly hit by typhoons cannot seem to improve their lot despite doing their utmost. It is bad enough that a crop is lost to a typhoon along with other damage. It is how to get the next crop planted that compounds the problem. And if the money used for the lost crop was already borrowed in the first place, what then is the farmer to do?
Sure, there is the "usual" government response and aid to the affected but this is more often than not too little and too late for too few of the afflicted despite the best efforts and intentions. And is this really the best we can do for something that happens to many places EVERY YEAR?
Farmers would ideally simply have to register their hectarage devoted to rice so an allocation can be made to cover their seed and fertilizer requirements. This would also provide a basis to forecast prospective harvests more accurately.
More importantly, this would ensure that the use of rice fields are MAXIMIZED and REGULARLY planted regardless of the success or failure of the crop due to natural disasters, allowing the farmers, as well as production, to recover much more quickly.
In case of success of the crop, a portion of the harvest may even be given back to the NFA while this could be automatically condoned in cases of calamity.
Farmers would ideally simply have to register their hectarage devoted to rice so an allocation can be made to cover their seed and fertilizer requirements. This would also provide a basis to forecast prospective harvests more accurately.
Another way to compete with cheap rice imports would also be to plant higher quality rice which would then NATURALLY command a better market-driven price.
This would finally create a much more stable, positive situation for farmers and would even promote and encourage mechanization that would boost production & income even more.
Mechanization is one of the missing links that the big rice producing countries have managed to achieve. It has failed to take off in the PH even as the availability of farm labor has considerably diminished as more and more of the younger generation choose a different lifestyle.
No amount of government programs to provide tractors and other machines can really succeed over the long-term for the simple reason that once a calamity happens, there is no more money to pay for maintenance or operating expenses & repairs, much less any amortizations on any loans. Any money they may have saved has to go to financing the seeds & fertilizers after basic needs if there is to be any prospect of future income.
Even if these machines are just handed out by the government, as they are so few and far between and not commercially available, even just finding spare parts and mechanics to fix them becomes an insurmountable problem especially in the more far-flung areas.
On the other hand, if farmers are spared from the burden of having to buy their seeds and fertilizers, then they would be more than able and willing to finance whatever they can save to buy modest, affordable machines which would increase production and save on time and labor. They would also be more able to pay any loans that may be given for them.
Those who are now selling seeds and fertilizers would then also not be displaced as they could either supply the seeds and fertilizers to the government or shift to selling these now affordable and necessary machines and tools as well as the spare parts and the mechanics to fix them.
If we can somehow make the effort to give free college education as well as more health benefits, is it not about time that we FINALLY give our long-suffering farmers the support they REALLY NEED which will in fact even result in more IMMEDIATE & TANGIBLE BENEFITS FOR ALL?
And it all starts simply from FREE SEEDS & FERTILIZERS.
How hard would it be?

Libraries Reflect Governments & Its' Peoples

by Marge Tadeja

Throughout history, libraries represent the evolution of man, if not man's history itself. Athens had its collection of perishable papyrus in libraries by the 4th century BC, while Babylon and Egypt have rooms with clay tablets as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Aristotle's library was considered the greatest of antiquity.

One of pop culture's most famous library at Wayne's Manor, also serves as the secret entrance to the bat cave. (All images & videos courtesy of  their copyright owners).

More than a school and a warehouse for books, the many uses of a library includes as venue for:
1. Museum,
2. training various skills like photography, 
3. geneaology room,
4. section for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning for students,
5. media room where users can see videos and listen to music, use internet,
6. movie theater for families, seniors, author lectures,
7. book discussion groups,
8. kitchen,
9. bookstore,
10. business section,
11. outdoor seating with shade,
11. drive-thru to pick up preordered books and return books,
12. source of help for people... and many more (click to view Nas' video).

Public libraries most especially, reflect the government and its people: its limits can only mean the capacity of those people that manage them in the first place. The Philippines for instance, is like many of the Oriental nations that rely on oral and visual "learning" if it can be considered learning at all, thus, hardly aware of the importance of facts, information, or true learning that can be gained more effectively through books, and other materials from libraries (if they exist at all).

Consequently,  the literacy of a nation reflects its culture, and barbarism. Something we Filipinos cannot brag about at this time.

The kid Bruce Wayne and James Gordon.

p.s.

One friend who goes by the name Judge Dredd of the Club Dredd group (by the way, there's an actual comic hero Judge Dredd! and the former, in my opinion, must have taken the moniker as a fan of visual books himself) lived with the Singsons of Ilocos Sur for a while, complained to me one time

"Fuck! Ilocanos don't read!!!"

And to think that many known Filipino writers are Ilocanos!
Pedro Bucaneg, Leona Florentino and Isabelo de los Reyes, and other writers in English like Carlos Bulosan, Manuel Arguilla, Salvador P. Lopez, Carlos Angeles, F. Sionil Jose, and Gregorio Brillantes, the late president Ferdinand Marcos, and even the infamous Jose Maria Sison.

I would not have given library thoughts and the lack of "reading" habit for Ilocanos a hoot if not this morning, when I heard my friend Lito Javier at mainstream local media (Bombo Radio) rant about a "useless" library project. I did not hear much about the project, but it strikes me just the same how low Philippine (or the Ilocano) society have come.

And if it is of any consolacion,

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TIME TO TAKE EDUCATION OUT OF THE BOX

by Paulino Jose Misa

It is well past time to wake up and realize that our educational systems are REALLY NOT WORKING the way they should. The problem is that the people who are supposed to work on these things are either fossilized, have an ulterior agenda, or are too comfortably chummy-chummy among themselves to want to think about shaking the status quo.
From what used to be a passion for excellence and distinction, only HUBRIS and mediocrity remains. It seems the best we can aspire to these days is to simply try to copy what others have long been doing and pat ourselves on the back for the humongous effort before relapsing once more into torpid routine. As if using a new system to teach the same old things would make any real difference!
It is not the appearance that counts, stupid! It is the CONTENT!
Instead of nurturing inspired leadership and a drive for innovation, we have wallowed in the fading, reflected glory of eras long past. Instead improving on past achievements, our educational system has become like the pyramids - decaying testaments of past greatness whose real purpose has been forgotten. Are we not ashamed that the best our educational institutions can do is number among the top 100 in Asia and not even in the world? Does no one find this ludicrous? Are the those responsible not at all bothered? Is no one up to the challenge to turn this around?
There are several major issues that seem to have been around for at least as long as the Communist rebellion if not longer.
At this late 21st Century date, how can it be considered “normal” that we not only lack classrooms and chairs but cannot even put together HIGH STANDARD books for our students? Is there even a PLAN or schedule to eventually address this or will we just have to bear with this until the next century?
While Kiko’s stupid child protection law might also be blamed for rising delinquency, the fact is that it is also really up to our education officials to at least recognize and provide some kind of
pro-active actions at the elementary school level to counter this trend. More emphasis on morality, GMRC, citizen’s responsibilities, respect for the law and society, the right brand of patriotism and the like must be made. Aside from memorizing all the cities & provinces & regions, isn’t that REALLY what social studies subjects are for?
It is not just memorizing the WHAT stupid! More important is UNDERSTANDING the WHY!
But aren’t the responsible officials supposed to know that? Why are they in their positions if they do not know something that we do or are too lazy to do what they must?
And so we have delinquent drop-outs and government scholars who don’t understand that scholarship DEMANDS focusing on your studies so you can change or improve your situation and/or the status quo with the knowledge and expertise learned AFTER GRADUATION rather than telling government everything that is wrong with it and plotting against it even though you can hardly pass your subjects!
Isn’t it time we return to the original definition of “ACADEMIC FREEDOM” instead of the distorted, simplistic and irresponsible license to do ANYTHING interpretation our colonial liberal mentality has made us believe.
There are LIMITS and RESPONSIBILITIES that come with academic freedom and these have been so clearly and GROSSLY OVERSTEPPED more and more by even the most prestigious of our learning institutions over the years.
It is not enough to provide FREE education. It is but the first important step.
Restoration of ORDER & DISCIPLINE is a matter that cannot wait any longer.
The huge factor in solving our stagnation as a nation and the key to progress and prosperity lies greatly in the RENAISSANCE & REVITALIZATION of our educational system.
Is there anyone up to this HEROIC task?

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