Why am I even farming?
I get raised eyebrows when I tell people what I’m up to.
Agriculture? You? Really? Is there even a decent income stream in this sector?
This is usually the reaction I get when I tell people I’m focusing my energy on making a business in the Agriculture sector.
The Philippines is a 3rd world country.
Here, when you say farming they conjure images of people who didn’t go to college and lived in far off places in the provinces.
Farming meant old men and women, hunched over rice fields.
Agriculture paints a picture of impoverished communities who are so behind technology.
No sane, young person would even think of going in to agriculture.
It was like an ancient art, slowly dying.
I even had one colleague brag about how he took the first chance he got to move away from his home to avoid farming.
The tone of of his voice showed how he was ashamed and kind of looked down on this kind of work.
I didn’t grow up thinking I’d go in to farming, heck, I was far more interested in becoming a lawyer or scientist.
This interest started when my family and I started going back to the province more often.
There, I learned about the land we inherited.
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It had mangoes, but that was it.
I didn’t think about it until several years back when I stumbled upon bamboo.
Fast forward to 2018 — four years after immersing ourselves with farming, I got closer to the locals and learned their problems.
How can I, someone who studied in all those private schools, be of help to the community where my ancestors came from?
How can I contribute and use what I have learned and experienced in helping our environment.
Noble and lofty, pursuits, I suppose.
But these were the questions that haunted me for a long time.
I’m a foodie and I now see how my interest in food has aligned to knowing where it came from and how it is made.
Everytime I see someone my age, or someone younger, in workshops and seminars, I feel hopeful and giddy.
Agriculture is a dying sector in our country. Farmers are part of the population that are usually impoverished and illiterate.
It’s not the “hottest” sector right — farm lots are now being bought to build subdivisions or mall.
Agriculture is not the “in” thing BUT it is an important one.
I fear that one day, we’ll end up like those people in a spaceship — where their future depended on a plant in an old boot.
What and where you eat is as important as where these came from.
Support your local farmers.
Let’s make Agriculture part of the cool crowd again.
