In this country wherein people are known for being learned and resourceful, an occupation

requiring a skillful hands and robust body engaged in cultivating the soil, producing crops and raising
livestock partakes, which is known as farmers.

There are three largest sectors in the Philippines. These are industry, service and agriculture.
Agriculture is said to be the backbone of one’s economy. It plays a strategic role in the process of the
development of a country having a significant contribution to the economic prosperity since it is the basic
source of food supply. So if the process of the economic development is to be initiated and made self-
sustaining, it must begin with agricultural sector.

This sector, is where farmers are present.

Today, there are ten million rice farmers in the Philippines which comprises a big part of over
one hundred million Filipinos. Their average age at present is 57 to 59 years old. Meaning, farmers will
reach their retirement age in a few years. This is one of the indicators that is becoming visible that shows
signs of shortage of farmers in the Philippines. According to Samar Representative Edgar Sarmiento, the
Philippines is losing at least one percent of its workforce in the agricultural sector annually which
equivalents to tens of thousands of workforce involved in food production every year. Making the
farmers actually in trouble.

It was also said that the average production cost of palay is at P12 per kilo. People from the
mountains in other rice-growing parts of the country say some greedy wholesalers there, are buying farm-
gate palay at only P8 per kilo, slyly displaying and viewing what was happening in some parts of Luzon.
Buying palay at P8 per kilo, if situations like this continues, will surely make the poor farmers poorer,
because they are forced to agree to this preemptive price just to be able to pay for their needs in their daily
living, to their children’s schooling and for the seeds they need to buy for the next planting. The poor
farmers will be so much buried in obligations and dismay that he is no longer passionate in producing
crops and raising livestock, but doing it instead just for the sake of producing and raising.
The government buying palays higher than the average production cost will be a big help having
the farmers enough allowances to distribute to their needs. The government must have the compassion to
place its interest to the poorest sectors including the farmers. These capable individuals under the very
heat of the sun, the wide area of the land, as they hammer down the soil and use their strength to make
crops trying to provide for themselves and for all of the people, and survive in the poverty place they are
living, these avaricious people still have the audacity to take advantage of their struggling life.
 Helping the farmers in bringing food security and sustaining livelihood, upgrading themselves as
farmers to entrepreneurs along the way will show how agricultural sector is actually a hope in lessening
poverty in the country. Of course, eliminating poverty is impossible, as God is the only way to prevent it.
But decreasing the hardships of the poor experiencing poverty will be a great step in aiding their
struggles. Providing quality care to the society’s