With Malacañang announcing that it has come up with a roadmap to mitigate the effects of El Niño and ensure stable water supply in the country, a party-list representing the agriculture sector is calling for government to rethink its agricultural policy and take into account the worsening climate change situation.
“While we grapple with the issue of land redistribution and reform, we should at the same time also push for land consolidation schemes like block and joint farming,” AGRI Party-list secretary general Benjie Martinez said.
Such strategies could help lower production costs, increase farm productivity and incomes, and enable farmers to establish agribusiness activities, said Martinez.
“While we grapple with the issue of land redistribution and reform, we should at the same time also push for land consolidation schemes.”
The downloading of government interventions in the form of credit, farm machinery, seeds, subsidized fertilizers and pesticides would also be more efficient, he added.
The country’s irrigation program could also become more systematic if they were built around block farms rather than individual farms, said the former undersecretary.
Martinez added that the implementation of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, the support component of the rice tariffication law, could also be easier with the aforementioned strategy.
“No new legislation would be needed to require all local government units, with the support of national government agencies, to establish water catchments.”
“Uso naman sa atin ang bayanihan, kaya siguro dapat imbes na localized lang ang concept na ito, hiramin natin, iakyat natin sa mga policy natin. Let’s lay the groundwork para imbes na individual, collective effort na ng mga magsasaka natin ang pinaguusapan,” suggested Martinez.
The party-list official also said that no new legislation would be needed to require all local government units, with the support of national government agencies, to establish water catchments, small water impounding and mini-dams.
“We already have an existing law for that, which, unfortunately, has not been fully implemented,” Martinez said.
Republic Act No. 6716, which was enacted in 1989, provides for the construction by 1991 of 100,000 water wells, cisterns and other types of rainwater harvesting facilities and catchment systems within the premises of public markets, public schools, farms and barangays with no existing water supply or where the source of water is scarce or limited.
Before rushing to create a new law, Martinez said government needs to check the compliance of local government units with the existing law and prioritize its full implementation.
