In PH Agriculture, How Many Single Success Stories – That’s What Some People Count. How Many Group Success Stories – That’s What Counts, People!
but teaching them what counts is best.”
Bob Talbert, “Generation Mindful
genmindful.com
On Facebook, I am almost always reading about agriculture and Single Success Stories, SSS – they make their writers and their subjects happy, and I can’t take that away from them. Those journalists who come up with SSS stories are teaching people to count one by one by one.
Instead of SSS, me, I prefer to count group by group, Group Success inspiring Stories, GSiS – and as I see it, this is what the PH Department of Agriculture, DA, is concentrating on, headed by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar, following his own “New Thinking for Agriculture.”
Let’s count. So far, in PH Agriculture, there are how many SSS stories already told? Say 500 since 10 years ago. Let us grant that they have inspired another 500 people, to make 1,000 SSS stories worth telling. Success means each became rich, or richer.
That’s nothing if you consider the successes of collaborative, combined efforts of groups. Pardon me, but the successes I count the most are those of farmer associations, farmer alliances, farmer cooperatives.
As with the Three Musketeers:
All For One, One For All!
And so I note with gladness that the DA has a new multi-million program as according to a press release 25 September 2020 – “DA Rolls Out P250-Million Agribusiness Grant For Farmer Coops[1]” (DA.gov.ph). When you feature SSS, you are cultivating individualism – differently, the DA under Mr Dar is cultivating collectivism, that is, clustering of efforts:
The program, “Enhanced Kadiwa Financial Grant” aims to provide cooperatives additional capital to purchase supplies and equipment and help them sell their produce directly to consumers. The grant includes vegetable crates, packing equipment, delivery truck, and revolving fund as assemblers or consolidators of fresh produce.
Never in the history of PH Agriculture has a government program been like this, distributing to groups to purchase supplies and equipment to consolidate fresh produce and deliver directly to consumers. The producers win, the consumers too!
An estimated 4,450 agri-fishery cooperatives are beneficiaries. So? So not only hundreds but thousands of people will succeed!
Another group focus is for “DA To Support Clustered Backyard Poultry, Livestock Farms[2]” (28 October 2020, DA.gov.ph). The initial budget for this is P337 million and is part of the DA’s National Livestock Program. To qualify for the grants, would-be recipients are required to group themselves into clusters with at least 15 members, if not members already of a cooperative, association, or people’s organization. The animals distributed include goats, sheep, ducks, swine, cattle and carabaos. I learn that the project beneficiaries per module may receive the following: 100 chicks for broiler production, 40 hens for egg production, 40 ducks for balut, piglets and cattle.
(animals image[3] from Webstockreview.net)
Now then, thousands of farmers can achieve GSiS success because there is so much support from the DA!
I call that spoiling the farmers, but it’s DA-Okay!@518
[1]https://www.da.gov.ph/da-rolls-out-p250-million-agribusiness-grant-for-farmer-coops/?fbclid=IwAR31LbTZuvRddEBfT84Mry_w9IDtcgBUHjWfhGPer5Y2YSM-zEF6NlwDUl0
[2]https://www.da.gov.ph/da-to-support-clustered-backyard-poultry-livestock-farms/?fbclid=IwAR3AIgwTCFFgkb7uJUYLg_Toj5i28LasNhdtMJdPwdR1AUei6u6XrEGXPoU
[3]https://webstockreview.net/explore/farmers-clipart-farmyard-animal/
Comments
Post a Comment