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Something I wrote last month about making the Visayas grow encouraged my friend Paul Gerschwiler to write to me about how to deal with poverty in our rural areas. Paul, who is from Switzerland, is married to a Cebuana and has lived in Argao town, Cebu for many years. Let me share with what he wrote below.
Possible improvements in agriculture. Many self-subsistence farmers and their families still live a frugal life like their ancestors did in pre-colonial and Spanish colonial times. But there can be a steady flow of silent but important developments and improvements. For instance, a couple of years ago, Dr. Romulo Davide (elder brother of the former CJ), then retired professor of plant pathology at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños, worked with the farmers in his mountainous home barangay Colawin in Argao. He transformed these simple farm laborers into what we could call farmer-scientists. Vast stretches of land had been turned into high-income experimental farms. In close coordination with the school which his family had started, his scientific farming project had greatly improved the lives of the community residents.
In the school itself, students learned advanced techniques in dairy farming and rearing of hogs, goats and poultry. Then there were also community-based contract reforestation projects within the watershed. Bamboos and exotic trees like mahogany, agoho, bagras, teak, germelina, Acacia mangium and indigenous trees were replanted. Organized communities were assisted in the development of community-based resource management plans. Soil and water conservation techniques were introduced to farmers. Some barangays developed their own water system for their agricultural and domestic consumption. At the headwaters of the Argao River in Salug, Dalaguete, an irrigation dam was developed which serves 50 hectares of rice fields.
As these few examples show, such improvements can be done, and they are not costly. But, of course, just talking about it won?t be enough. Someone will have to grasp the nettle of the action. Who could that be?
Farm to market roads. Whatever the agricultural produce, farm to market roads are most needed which I think should be a priority task of every provincial and local government. The Mantalongon cable car down to Dalaguete proper is an excellent example for this kind of improvement.
Market to benefit the farmers. A saying states that: ?when a farmer goes to market to sell his produce, he asks the buyers their buying prices. But when the same farmer buys goods from traders, he asks the sellers their selling prices.? In between the farmer is squeezed, and more often than not too little is left for him to make for a decent life.
Potential entrepreneurs can create business. Returning overseas Filipino workers are a good source of potential entrepreneurs. But in a article of Feb. 23, 2007, we read the unsettling news that 76 percent of businesses put up by OFWs fail because they lack the skills and lend money to their relatives rather than carefully invest it in their respective businesses. Many OFWs are lured into business enterprises even if they have no background about the business.
Lack of knowledge, skills and guidance. Lack of knowledge, skills and guidance (coaching) seems to be a considerable problem. During my many years as a resident I have observed countless businesses that were mindlessly started out of the blue, with no concept, with no business plan, with no idea who and where their future customers might be. Businesses started in that way are inevitably doomed to fail. What is needed here is a platform where potential entrepreneurs can learn the basics of business, possible opportunities, product and market analysis (where is my market? who are my customers?) financing, handling money, working out a serious and realistic business plan covering the next five years, etc.
Finance and credit lines. Don?t wait for foreign investors. They won?t come. As I had to learn by my own costly experiences, the local small-scale market is very far from being ready to accommodate foreign investments. Besides, there surely is enough local money around, only it is not made easily available to support starting business undertakings. Interest rates and payback terms are generally prohibitive. Many banks offer credit lines only to companies which are at least three years old. How can such companies ever survive the first crucial three years? The banks certainly have their own good reasons to be so restrictive, particularly in the province. But without reasonable credit lines businesses won?t be able to develop. This is a condition sine qua non.
Taking action. Sometimes I get the (maybe a little exaggerated) impression that, when economics and poverty are discussed, we act like experienced doctors at the bedside of a dangerously ill patient. We have the correct diagnosis and we actually know the right medicine. Only we prefer to talk about his condition and possible ways of healing instead of taking concrete action.
