Tough times for our farmers

Agriculture chief Arthur Yap has assured Pangasinan farmers that the very dry and very hot weather we’ve been enduring the past weeks is no cause for great alarm.

It’s supposed to be just a prolonged dry season, not a drought similar to the one being experienced by Isabela further up north, which has prompted the government to declare the province under calamity.

But it is worrying. Yap himself is anxious. He said it will be critical if the rains don’t come within the next two weeks. Already, half the productive farmlands in the province have remained untilled.

And while rice supply won’t be a problem, particularly for the demand within Pangasinan, as pointed out by our provincial agriculturalist Jose Almendares, the impact of the situation is borne largely by our farmers.

There may be rice to eat (at least for those of us who can afford it), but the farmers – the people who produce the food we serve and share at our dinner tables – are under serious threat of collectively losing half their possible income for the year. And that could translate to not just not having food on their tables, but more debt for them, sacrificing a child or two from going to school, and delayed, or perhaps foregone, dreams for improved living conditions.

The irrigation system in the province has been receiving  attention and  funding in the past years from the government, both at the national and local levels, but with much of the agricultural land still rain-fed and  thus at the full mercy of  Mother Nature, the concern and the money is obviously far from being enough.

Our dear farmers, long been a marginalized sector in our society, deserve much more.

The erratic weather condition we have been experiencing not just in the past weeks but the last several years is a global phenomenon. The climate has been changing and acting strangely most everywhere in the world. It will take a worldwide effort to curb and revert the man-made damages we have wrought to our environment.

But the local government, with help from the national administration, can work on softening the brunt of nature’s seeming retribution, especially to those who are affected the most. The agricultural industry is in need of more extensive development.

And in the meantime, we can all pray for the rain.

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