What's causing locally-produced agricultural goods to go expensive? Again, it's the law of supply and demand. Natural calamities can't be avoided all the while people can be disaster-prepared. One of the biggest mistakes done by the Aquino administration is spending a PHP 70 BILLION budget on recycling government money through 4Ps when all that money could have been used for agricultural improvement.
Why I would really like to blame the transfer of the PHP 70 Billion budget for 4Ps to why agriculture is in a disaster? Don't give me the whole "but 4Ps will generate jobs" excuse because it doesn't generate jobs! Instead, people in the farming areas would rather just wait for a shower of gold coins resulting to the neglect of agriculture. Why work in the farms when you've got a shower of gold coins, right? Farming becomes no longer appealing if all the people in the rural areas will have to do is wait for their precious 4Ps -- no more plowing, no more harvesting because all they have to do is wait for a shower of gold coins from the government.
The result of neglecting farmlands is really disastrous. Outdated equipment is reducing the effectiveness and efficiency of farms. A lack of proper infrastructure (such as roads and bridges) can cause serious delays and accidents which can lead to massive losses of farmland products. Keeping the farms in the Dark Ages is not a good thing. Neglecting agricultural development has drastically caused the local agricultural supply of the Philippines to dwindle down. Farms, poultries and fisheries which could have been used to produce food in the Philippines are no longer productive. They have been long neglected.
How is agriculture an important economic backbone? Everybody eats and food from the table is from agriculture. Enjoying rice and your latest meal that you need to eat in order to survive? Thank agriculture! Agriculture provides all the raw materials we use today. We need trees to produce wood and paper. Medicinal plants are used in producing medicine. Without agriculture there will be no raw materials to help the economy go round and round. It's like how can I sell rice grains or how can restaurants operate without agriculture? It's impossible and it'd require magic to do so. Remember that money is useless when you can't use it to buy food. Without agriculture then businesses will all dwindle away because the source of raw materials is gone.
The PHP 70 Billion that was allocated to the stupid 4Ps "investment program" should have been used for agricultural development. Roads and bridges to the farms should be repaired and upgraded for more efficient delivery. Upgrading of farming equipment should be done such as introducing new modern methods of farming. Some of these modern methods may involve building of facilities that will help mass produce organic fertilizers using biodegradable waste from the farms. This would help fight the use of chemical fertilizers (which are dangerous for the environment) and maybe reduce the need of farmers to go to the cities to buy organic fertilizers. Talk about trying to make sure that farming becomes both efficient (using as little resources and time to yield results) and effective (bringing in the best results) through these programs.
So still think 4Ps is beneficial to the economy? Still want to think that agriculture is not important? Then think about it only when all of agriculture will be destroyed will you realize your precious 4Ps can't be eaten!
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