Cres Ian Lorenzo
I CANNOT but help write a follow-up column on my very first piece on the need for a “Resilience Revolution” in agriculture, as the torrential rains and Middle East crisis are clobbering our food producers, most especially the smallholders.
And there should be no more excuses to make an urgent paradigm shift to transform our agriculture sector into a system made up of secure and adaptable networks that are very capable of overcoming climate shocks and geopolitical trade disruptions.
The intention is to build long-term food sovereignty and security, by developing and putting in place cutting-edge laboratory science, adaptive governmental policy, and community-driven field practices.
And imagine if we had such a system fully in place right now — crop damage can be reduced to minimum, and the government won’t have to worry about sourcing and allocating funds to assist affected farmers and fishers to recover.
The social cost — not only in monetary terms — of food producers losing their potential income amounting to the billions, getting their homes damaged, and disrupting their daily lives, will also be minimized.
The overlapping effects of a resilient agriculture system can also yield handsome dividends for communities. A good example is investing massively in water conservation systems such as aquifer recharging, diversion canals and dams, small water impounding, among others, can reduce flooding during heavy rains and help ensure water availability during the dry season. These are not “miracle” solutions and I have written much about this before the pandemic.
Let me give special mention to aquifer recharging that is practiced globally but hardly heard of in the Philippines. It is not costly, can be executed by communities, is backed by science, and is an ancient practice. I am sure we do not have a shortage of scientific experts and bright minds who can help mainstream aquifer recharging in our country.
And utilizing scientific experts and bright minds is part of the first foundation for a resilient agriculture system. In short, science.
The second foundation, which is instrumental in getting scientific solutions to the ground, is policy. This also covered subsidies, land use and zoning, smallholder involvement, and financing.
The third foundation is practice, or implementing actionable on-farm stewardship where resilience should result into the tangible and regenerative management that conserves and improves agriculture’s natural capital, particularly soil and water.
Resilience revolution can impact economy
While among the primary objectives of the Resilience Revolution for agriculture is to ensure the food security and food sovereignty, it can serve as the impetus to transform our national economy.
This I say because the technology-driven change to transform the country’s food production system into a resilient one can propel the science-based re-engineering of the economy as a whole.
Currently, it is consumer spending and the services sector that are driving the country’s economic growth and expansion. However, it is becoming clearer these cannot deliver economic growth similar to the level of top Southeast Asian economies, particularly Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia that logged 5- to 8-percent economic growth in the first six months of this year.
On the other hand, the Philippines logged less than 3-percent economic growth in the first half of the current year.
Besides a thriving industrial sector, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia are agricultural powerhouses. Add to that the fact that they attract more tourists.
And while Thailand’s economic growth may not be among the highest in Southeast Asia, it is one of the top rice exporters, and a major car manufacturing hub globally.
Clearly, science is behind the rise of the agriculture and industrial sectors of Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Analyzing deeply the four leading Southeast Asian countries, the agriculture and industrial sectors can drive the scientific transformation of the Philippine economy.
As I stated earlier, science is among the foundations of the Resilience Revolution for the country’s agriculture sector, as science-based solutions are vital if not indispensable in conserving water and soil resources, improving yields so farmers can earn more, developing plants that can thrive under drought or flooded conditions, adding value to agricultural produce, among many others.
And at the center of developing science-based solutions is research for development (R4D), and intensely developing the R4D system for the country’s Resilience Revolution for agriculture can have both a technical and cultural spillover to the industrial sector.
Once agriculture- and environment-related R4D activities accelerate, a portion of the matured technologies developed for the realization of the Resilience Revolution will either find application in other industries and/or provide the impetus for the development of industrial technologies.
Furthermore, the accelerated deployment of digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) to push forward the Resilience Revolution for agriculture can result in the massive spillover of those technologies to the industrial sector.
More importantly, the scientific culture that would take root from the pursuit of the Resilience Revolution for agriculture will “infect” the industrial sector. This will also accelerate if big food companies and firms needing natural ingredients will increase their R4D spending and forge stronger links with farmers and fishers.
State universities and colleges (SUCs) must also be among the leaders in developing science, technology, and innovation anchored on the Resilience Revolution, including their major responsibility of producing the human capital we need today and in the future.
So, the Resilience Revolution for agriculture can also drive the re-engineering of the country’s industrial sector from low-value adding to higher value creation.
More resilient communities can also be created by the Resilience Revolution for agriculture, making these communities attractive sites for doing business.
And finally, a more robust agriculture sector created by the Resilience Revolution will be teeming with prosperous farmers and fishers, creating markets for finished products and various services. This eventually will result in the creation of more business to serve the needs of the prosperous farmers and fishers.
But for that to happen, the Resilience Revolution for the country’s food production should succeed, driven by science, policy, and practice.
We can make that happen.
