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Opinion writers claimed that this happens due to the ignorance and manipulation of the government to our farmers to benefit powerful vested interests in the country. Though their theory may contain a grain of fact, the reality is far from their imagined life of a pervasive conspiracy to keep the small farmers poor.
"They will never escape poverty."
According to leading scholars on the topic, we can identify three major reasons why small farmers are mired in poverty. First is that the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARPland )'s retention ceiling guaranteed that small farmers will never be able to escape poverty, as noted by National Scientist and economics professor Raul Fabella (2014). Because of the low retention ceiling (five hectares for family-cultivated farms and three hectares each for their children up to four children, for a total of 17 hectares), farm sizes are economically unviable. As time passes, the original CARP beneficiaries subdivided their lands into minuscule sizes as an inheritance to their children and grandchildren. It's no surprise that the average farm land area in the Philippines has shrunk to less than 1.5 hectares.
If a farmer grows high-value crops such as vegetables or cut flowers, he can earn a good living from 1.5 hectares of land. However, if he cultivates traditional crops such as rice, corn, or coconut, he would never be able to make a living from farming. With the land size that he has, no matter how productive the farmer is in tending his farm, no matter how much assistance or subsidies the government offers to such a farmer, he would be unable to receive an income sufficient to support the needs of a family of five or six members. It is worth noting that the vast majority of our farmers cultivate conventional crops.
Unorganized farmers
The nation is home to millions of small farmers. The government, especially the Department of Agriculture (DA), whose headquarters are in Metro Manila, is unable to reach all of them. Farmers must be formed into cooperatives or unions in order for the government to provide assistance. Unfortunately, the country's cooperative past is littered with setbacks. Farmers' cooperatives in the Philippines have come a long way since the heyday of the Facomas (farmers cooperative and marketing associations) in the 1950s, the Masagana 99 under the Marcos government, and the creation of the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) under the Aquino administration. The causes are threefold: a lack of transparency among farmer cooperative leaders; cooperatives and farmer associations are established primarily to access government handouts; and the government agency (e.g., CDA) with oversight responsibility for cooperatives is geared toward cooperative regulations rather than providing them with an agribusiness perspective.
The situation is exacerbated by civil society organizations (CSOs) or people's organizations (POs), which trumpet the aim of achieving self-sufficiency among farmer groups but are still at the forefront of those who criticize the government if it fails to provide dole-outs to farmers. The poorly thought-out free irrigation scheme is a prime example. When there is a lack of fresh water, providing it for free promotes its inefficient use or consumption. It would have been preferable if farmers were charged irrigation fees with the understanding that the money would be used to run and maintain the irrigation system. This is a self-sufficiency formula. Unfortunately, few CSOs and POs are championing this line of reasoning because they prefer the widespread appeal of irrigation dole-outs.
Role of LGUs
The Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991 delegated to local government units the delivery of basic services to local communities (LGUs). Part of this is the provision of agricultural services, which is why extension staff have been devolved from the DA central office to the LGUs. As a result, any assistance delivered by the DA must be downloaded to its regional field offices (RFOs), which must then route their assistance through the provincial and municipal LGUs.
In this configuration, there are two potential bottlenecks. The competency of provincial and agricultural workers hired by LGUs is one example. In certain cases, they are not eligible to do their work because they are political appointees (i.e., supporters of the incumbent). And two, if the elected LGU official does not prioritize agricultural development due to a bias against large-ticket infrastructure projects (e.g., building sports complexes, hospital complexes (even with insufficient medical personnel), etc.) where the rent to be extracted is much higher than the implementation of agricultural development projects.
The DA is left hostage in such a situation. However, it has no choice but to continue convincing LGUs of the importance of prioritizing agricultural activities for two reasons. First is that it is the DA's responsibility to encourage agricultural production. Second, since the public is unaware of the LGC's delineation of obligations between LGUs and the national agency, the agency is immediately blamed for anything negative that occurs in local agricultural communities.
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