Helping the city's marginalized farmers
It is to the credit of Atty. Michael L. Rama, former mayor of Cebu City, that he, in his six years of stewardship of the city, gave focused attention to the roads in the mountain barangays. He opened new connections between and among villages in unprecedented manner such that it has become easy for residents of neighboring sitios to inter-relate with one another. The former mayor also widened and poured concrete on old roads.
We are all aware of the acrimonious struggle between Atty. Rama and His Honor, Mayor Tomas R. Osmeña. Even before the latter assumed the reins of the city government in July this year, he took moves that indicated he was out to punish the former for his audacity to challenge the Osmeña leadership. Naturally, the residents in the mountain barangays were apprehensive that the road projects would be discontinued.
But, we, who continue to frequent the mountains, have seen that the concreting of the roads has not waned. There are still work gangs doing cementation on many spans. It thus has dawned on us that that the conflict of leadership directions between these two political stalwarts has not affected the efforts to make the travel to the mountains more comfortable. In fact, when I visited Barangay Paril yesterday, via the Binaliw-Mabini route, I saw the concreting being done in three major stretches and I surmised that, by February, the works will have been completed such that I need not use my rickety, old Volkswagen Beetle by then.
After paving with cement the roads to the mountain barangays, the next project that the city should undertake is to help marginalized farmers. Today, there are small patches of agricultural land that have not been developed. People with meager resources own these fields. They cannot afford the expenses in tilling their own lots. For one, most of them do not even have carabaos that are needed for plowing their fields. If they ask carabao owners to plow their farm, they now pay three hundred fifty pesos a day, an amount that is huge to them already.
The city government can very well set up a system for mechanized farming. Perhaps, it can create a department in the city administration that is manned by men skilled in agriculture productivity and equipped with basic farm implements. This department should be mandated to assist poverty-stricken farmers secure the use of modern equipment. Why so? We have to understand that a tractor can do the job of plowing a small agricultural field in a day's time where it takes a carabao one week to plow the same size of land. If such a department is created, its head can coordinate with the different barangay captains for a year-long availment of farm implements.
I know of some farmers who find the cost of seeds prohibitive. It is a problem for them how to generate the kind of cash to buy seeds. Faced with buying food for the table and paying for seeds, the choice is not debatable. This is a problem that the city government has to interfere with. We know that it approximates the workings of a socialist state for government to provide farmers of this initial input of production. But if the city has to make our agricultural fields productive, it has to assume a significant aspect of socialism in order to help marginalized farmers.
If we talk about agricultural products, I believe that the city can be self-sufficient. Because our terrain is not suited for planting rice, we may not have the area for this staple, but certainly we have enough space in our mountain barangays to produce most of what we need. Vegetable farming can be boosted. I have seen batong, okra, paliya, talong, and others grown somehow in gardens scattered in the mountains. This is where the help of the city government can come in. It is about time that the leadership of the city train their thought into helping small farmers convert their idle lands to robust fields or improve their outputs. Who knows, the one objective of bringing down the prizes of farm products for the benefit of everyone is not remote.
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