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Every day, the food we eat connects us to a vast global web of farmers, traders, food manufacturers, retailers and many other people involved in getting food from farm to fork. Most of us probably don’t pause to think about it while biting into a piece of fruit or a slice of bread, but this global food system is central to some of the biggest challenges facing humanity. Here are some of the major problems farmers experience that needs to be addressed immediately.
Enough Capital/Investments
According to a report from Philstar, Philippines' lack of capital served as one of the main distributors on post-harvest loss upon the production of rice and other crops in the country which ballooned to 15 to 29 percent. Farmers do not usually have enough income just for their everyday living, how much more in providing capital on their crops. They also do not have their own land to plant their crops which takes their freedom to have the full profit at the end of harvest. Local government seemed to support this kind of shortcoming that as of now it is relevant among agricultural industry. With the advancements of technology in farming equipment, farmers probably won’t cope up because of the low capital and will only force them to continue with their typical way, producing usual profit or even worse in an unfortunate circumstance.
Irrigation and Maintenance
Irrigation system has been considered as one of the most important factors in agricultural sector in particular to rice production. It also concerned the government in the previous years that they put additional funding and investing more on development and improvement of irrigation systems in the country. In a span of ten years the budget allotted for the said program has been doubled expecting a better result in the upcoming years and finally to relieve poverty among our local farmers. However, almost half of the target beneficiaries did not make a complete use of the program; some failed to be included, and others had some issues with their irrigation systems. Some project designs were not that helpful to reach the demands of farmers in terms of their production besides from being very expensive in terms of operation, construction, and maintenance. Issues in the Philippine Irrigation Systems have never been new and also have been affected farmers produce if not poor in quality, is low in quantity.
Fertilizers and Pesticides
Good fertilizers and pesticides seem to be rarely produce in our country and almost all of them, which we always see, are imported from other international countries. Due to importation, prices of quality fertilizers jump higher making it less affordable and expensive for our local farmers. Even our local fertilizer’s becomes more expensive as in the beginning of 2020, Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) recorded the highest increase of urea at 1,139.78php per sack on average which is 12.9 percent higher than the previous year. Pesticides, besides on the danger on farmers’ pocket, they have also harm children, plants, and even farmers themselves. Exposure will often result to symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, weakness, and fever. Pesticide poisoning is still an issue and manufacturers did not make changes in terms of its composition probably in a safer mixture.
Low post-harvest value
Despite the hard work our farmers put into one season of harvest, their products were still undervalued and sometimes exploited by their negotiators or buyers. Those issues were still neglected by the Department of Agriculture which makes it occurring as of today. Their negligence also make speculations on many people about the corruptions that take place within the said government agency. Finally because of the fact that them farmers usually do not have their own land, a 50-50 agreement will be applied to their profit which by simple imagination will left a very low value of production.
Price Fluctuation
Price Fluctuation is one of the most challenging thing on farmers in terms of selling their products to the market. It is affected by various factors that either have to do with the product itself or to the its demand. One of the factors the makes prices fluctuate is that when a product is not already on its best quality. Almost all farms products can be considered as perishable and have to be consumed as early time possible. There is always a possibility that a certain product would not be consumed at all which will gonna be a waste of effort upon the part of farmers. Other factor is that the unpredictability of the market which may affect the whole value of the product that either benefit the farmers or just bring them another suffering.
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