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Philippines have immensely close ties with havocs and crises yearly. From natural calamities to social and political turmoil, indeed our country is a home ground of uncertainties and constant danger. But there is one sector that endures the weight of these crises the most. The agricultural sector is reckoned as society's backbone for it responds to our public health needs by ensuring the safety and security of our food. Yet on the contrary of the abundance of fertile lands and fresh water supply, our farmers remain the poorest and suffer at the hem of the society.
Poverty remains a mainly rural phenomenon. It is a huge wonder why our farmers, despite of the vast hectares of lands and being the main supplier of agricultural needs and foods to the whole nation and neighbouring ones, are stuck penniless.
Based on the narratives gathered by John Patrick P. Habacon, a Rappler writer, our farmers tend to eye "beyond control" situations such as typhoons aftermath, and seasonal droughts and rains as a normal thing and instead developed an acceptance to their conditions. What troubled them is the volatility of palay prices in the market—a concern which seems taking permanence on rice farmers even before the pandemic wreckage.
The flopping of prices is said to be linked to the de-emphasizes traditional ideologies in order to seek progress with the help of pragmatic methods or what we modernly called "neo-liberalization". It is applied for neo-liberalization would be able to push our country into improved quality of life and development. Yet the struggles and demanded resiliency of our farmers tell the other side of the story. For majority of our farmers do not hold land titles of their fields, they bow to mercy of landlords, businessmen, traders, and middlemen. Agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilizers are becoming a burden on their financial pockets for prices of it too are drastically uprising.
To add, farmers lamented the lack of support and aid of the government to their status quo. That if left unaddressed furthermore would root them resentment toward the state. With this, several of them would not want their offspring to follow their footprints and would rather want them to attain education and seek an occupation with high financial stand, for our agriculturists fate is not clear skies. Sure enough, that crises situate farmers into stressful and oppressive terms. But it does not mean that these crises are the reasons they are at the hem of the society. Instead the larger structural forces, and social and economic barriers may have heightened their vulnerability and weakened their capacity to withstand such situations. So as long these threats and blockades are cohabit by us, the common Filipino farmer will suffer.
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