A hand tractor is better than an SUV
There are lots of uncultivated parcels of land in the mountain barangays of Cebu City. In fact, I do personally observe that there are more idle lots compared to those that are tilled productively. Many of these supposedly agricultural lands consist of small sizes. They do not fall into the category of "landed estates" as the term is defined in a landmark Supreme Court ruling to mean large tracts of land owned by few families. Indeed, small time farmers variously own these assets.
It has so saddened me to see that these properties, which could have otherwise provided some abundance to their owners and could have probably added supply to the market to result in cheaper prices of farm commodities, have remained idle enough to ask why. How come many farmers, who themselves are lot owners, have neglected to cultivate their land? Why should they pass the chance of tilling their own soil?
One day, few years ago, while I was planting some Mabolo and Tugas trees along the perimeter of my small garden in a mountain barangay, a farmer approached me to offer his hand in what I was doing. When I asked how much I had to pay for his help, he mentioned a certain sum of money I could afford. So, I engaged him then and today, in each of my weekly regular visit to my garden, the number of my farm hand has grown exponentially.
As soon as I hired the first farmer to come to me, I learned many things from him. He himself is a landowner. But, every time he cultivates his own land, he is faced with immediate dilemma of getting the fund for his family's daily needs, let alone sustain his activity for an extended period. His solution is to borrow money or obtain goods on credit in order not starve his family. In other words, each day that he tills his farm, he encounters a two-faced problem. Because he does not work for another person, he earns nothing and still he has to bring food for his family.
Aside from being a landowner, this farm hand offers his services of plowing the fields of other landowners using his own farm-animal, a carabao. When he plows my garden, his fee is three hundred pesos a day. I learned though from him that he will be extremely lucky if he finds such kind of work for ten days in a month. Computing his compensation for the average number of days monthly, a plowman that he is, earns about three thousand pesos.
We have to acknowledge that plowing a field with the use of a carabao is not efficient, output wise. Here is a comparison. If a regular office laborer works for eight hours a day, with just ten to fifteen minutes break each in the morning and afternoon, the plowman has to rest his carabao for a much longer time. An hour's break in the morning and a similar time in the afternoon translate into a break period of a total of two hours daily.
Now, here is a second point of comparison. This farmhand can finish plowing a field of one quarter of a hectare in area in four days. But, he said that there was a farmer in his barangay who had a hectare of vegetable garden and who owned a mechanical tractor. With that machine, the farmer could do the plowing in one and half to two days time.
What is evident from what we have said so far is the need to support our farmers with modern equipment. The time saved in availing of, say, a tractor (compared to using a carabao) is too much to ignore. Our city bought, not long ago, eighty brand new SUV's for the use of barangay captains at the cost of over a million pesos per unit. It could have very well ordered hand tractors costing somewhere like three hundred thousand pesos per unit and distributed the same to the mountain barangays. Such purchase could have made a difference. A hand tractor is definitely more productive than an expensive air-conditioned sports utility vehicle! But, since crying over spilt milk is useless, let our officials consider the idea in the column today for future consideration.
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