‘Teach a man how…’

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

There is some amount of disagreement as to who really came up with this adage but one thing that is certain, the statement has become institutionalized in the realm of agriculture, self-sufficiency and empowerment. Ironically, in the real world, much of the “teaching” has been done by a parent, brother or elder. The teaching is out of necessity, survival or the need for everyone in a family or community to be productive and contribute to daily food needs.

Many of us learned by doing chores such as feeding pigs, chickens or goats. Others by joining the “hunt,” going out to fish or caring for sick animals. In Third World countries or less developed agriculture-based nations, the current trends have been on mechanization, genetic manipulation, corporate farming and digital technology or high tech such as drones for seed dispersal, fertilizer application or plotting. The obsession is with producing more instead of doing it right.

In the Philippines, it seems that we are utilizing the solutions of First and Second World agriculture in a Third World nation where available land is small and markets fractured. To make matters worse, the government and “experts” have been pushing for modernization and increased productivity but have been dismissive about the need to “teach a man how.”

Ironically, in the pre-COVID/pre-ASF period, ordinary backyard Filipino hog raisers produced 60 to 65 percent of the total volume of hogs in the country. Many of them operated on sheer guts and winging it and not much from training or teaching.

While traveling to different provinces in the Philippines as volunteer trainer and product endorser of BMeg Animal Feeds, I was shocked to discover that there is only one international training center for pig husbandry and it is located in a city behind the SM Mall in Lipa City.

The International Training Center for Pig Husbandry is a Dutch-funded training center that gives various training programs related to raising pigs, breeding pigs, as well as the economics of pig production and management. I have enrolled in their 10-day hog raising course and pre-COVID I paid a little over P7,000. Most business people or serious backyard hog raisers would treat it as the cost of learning while saving time.

But ordinary Filipinos in provincial settings can’t afford that. P7,000 can buy you one piglet and your first sack of hog feed. Given a choice, they will buy the pig and ask the barangay “know it all” or their “Maritess” what to do or nag the feed store owner. This lack of available information is one reason why thousands have attended the many BMeg Fiestahan events before the COVID pandemic.

Unfortunately, we could only spend a day or two at the most for every venue and, given the costs to mount such an event, the schedules were limited. In spite of what people think, the University of Google or industry webinar programs don’t reach the neediest and as a result, the poor but valiant backyard neophytes in hog raising end up losing thousands of pesos to disease, poor management and lack of support, making them even poorer or in debt.

In contrast to that, all LGUs have basketball gyms, multi-purpose gyms, plazas and the like that can host such events. From what I have seen and learned, most LGUs have provincial, city or municipal veterinarians who are certainly knowledgeable about basic animal husbandry, propagation and management. They can do the training or ask help from the local BMeg feeds distributor in the area.

A number of provinces even have agricultural colleges and universities whose junior or senior students could help as well as learn from such programs. Incidentally, these outreach programs are not limited to hog raising but also features separate events for raising poultry, game fowl, fish, dog care and animal health care products.

Ironically, LGUs gain much from agriculture-related activities and trade but are not equally active or supportive. They collect taxes from feed stores, they get revenues from market sales and agricultural trade but they are not actively hosting or conducting continuous trainings on how to raise pigs, chickens, ducks, goats, cows, etc. Aside from their failure to extend trainings, many LGUs don’t hire technicians to do the much-needed field work. Some won’t even let us use their venues for free.

I have been to very popular tourist destinations where the entire native chicken population has been wiped out because of the New Castle Disease or “peste.” When I asked around, the residents told me that most of them did not practice proper vaccination, could not afford the vaccines (less than P500 for 500 to 1000 birds) and/or because the local government in the area no longer administered free vaccination, not even for dogs and cats versus rabies. Something is only done when there is a serious outbreak, or someone gets seriously sick.

Aside from such outbreaks there are the regular occurrences of fish kill in different provinces and LGUs. Those events are clear evidence that the LGUs are not active in their regulatory processes and monitoring of fishponds and fish farms. Fish kills cause pollution in the water or on the ground that are used as disposal areas of tons of dead fish. It also causes economic displacement as well as commercial disruption.

I am hoping that DA Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel and DILG Sec. Benhur Abalos get to read this article and would consider establishing a network, a system of cooperation to establish the long-term practice of teaching people “how to fish,” how to farm and revive a once thriving domestic agriculture where WE produce our food.

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