The Philippines is known as an agricultural country mainly because of its vast agricultural land and rich vegetation. In fact, the country once prided on being the top exporter of rice, abaca, coconut and other agricultural products to some parts of the world. The neighboring Asian countries learned their basic agriculture technology from us and even developed & cultivated our homegrown species like the Milagrosa rice, according to the Department of Agriculture’s material, “The Philippine Agriculture Today and the Future”. Our primary source of employment also used to be in the sectors of farming and fishing. However, as the years passed, the glow of the industry slowly gleams as interests for agricultural thing continually dwindle especially to most millennials.
In the present, modern time where everything is done and achieved instantaneously, how can one place value on hardwork, patience, determination and waiting which are core values for successful farming? Even basic gardening which used to be part of the school’s curriculum has also been removed to give way to other subjects which will enable today’s generation of students keep up with global standards. Nothing againsts modernization and advancement in this light, but that may only confine farming exposure of today’s youth to social media and gaming apps. Not to mention also that we are slowly losing most of our agricultural lands to subdivisions, malls, resorts, and other industrial projects.
Nonetheless, it is a relief that the Philippine government and some private companies go hand-in-hand to revitalize and realign agricultural farming to keep pace with the contemporary times. The government has high hopes that it will be successful in re-introducing farming and gardening to today’s new breed of Filipinos by way of agri-tourism, training next batch of farmers with the application of modern technology, even employing the use of social media for information dissemination. On the other hand, most of the agricultural private sectors embody in their corporate values the social responsibility of helping alleviate the poor plight of their partner farmers by way of financial support or programs that will contribute to their productivity and comfort. On top of the above efforts are the assistance extended also by other countries like Japan, Israel, USA, and others which discern the Philippines as an agricultural tiger yet to rise.