COMMENTARY
Inquirer
Published on Page B5 of the June 30, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
TWO days ago, I asked one of the world's leading mango experts, Dr. Hernani Golez, what his newest project was. He gave an unexpected answer.
"Empowerment," Golez said. "I am helping empower farmers through technology transfer."
Golez is the agricultural center chief of the National Mango Research and Development Center, Department of Agriculture (DA). He has been invited to many countries for his unique knowledge of mangoes.
He laments the fact that the 2006 budget approved by Congress for the Department of Agriculture is only P15 billion. This is less than half the P32 billion mandated by the Agriculture Fisheries and Modernization Act (Afma). Because of this, technology transfer through regular government channels has been quite limited.
Take a case in point. Ten years ago, Emma Santa Ana and members of her Kababaihang Barangay sa San Miguel, Bulacan (KBB -- Village Women in San Miguel, Bulacan) launched a greening program that would not only help the environment, but also provide additional income for farmers. Today, they have more than 1 million mango trees in San Miguel alone.
Better variety
But their income could have been much higher if the mangoes they planted were of a better variety. Today, if a KBB member wants to get a better mango seedling variety, the nearest place she can go to is the DA's Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) office in Manila, where she can get a maximum of only 100 seedlings.
Golez's new project is to empower KBB women in mango production through technology transfer.
"This particular model is not yet implemented in our country," Golez said. "It may therefore be a model to follow for other high value fruits such as durian, rambutan, guava and jackfruit."
Here is how it works: The technology must be transferred to an organized group of farmers. This way, the technology transfer is not given to just one farmer at a time, but to several farmers who can, in turn, spread it to their respective subgroups.
The KBB is such a group. It won a United Nations award for best women's rural development project in Asia in 1984, and again in 1989. Today, the KBB has 18,000 mango seedlings and 100,000 seeds. All of these will use the grafting technology transferred by Golez so that they will all be of consistently high quality.
Thinking 'outside the box'
Imagine the difference it will make for a KBB member -- she need not go all the way to Manila to get 100 seedlings, but head straight for San Miguel town in Bulacan province, just north of Manila, where she has access to 118,000 seedlings. The KBB will not only increase its income, it may also become a source of high-quality seedlings in the main Philippine island of Luzon.
In terms of price, a typical mango seedling whose quality may not be guaranteed costs P80. But a seedling with guaranteed quality goes for an average of P175. The consumers will also benefit. Mango quality will be consistently higher and, because of the plentiful supply, prices may go down.
In this age of rapid trade liberalization where cheap unfairly subsidized imported agricultural imports threaten the livelihood of our farmers, we must discard our traditional practices and think "out of the box." The "government dole-out" mentality must be replaced by Golez's model of empowerment through technology transfer.
There is a need to reengineer our agricultural service delivery system that will allow the government to steer, rather than row. In the mango example, Golez said, the BPI usually does the grafting and offers superior seedling to farmers. In some instances, when the meager budget resources permit, they transfer technology to a few lucky individuals.
But since this is often done on a one-on-one basis and implemented as a corrective measure, the impact is severely limited.
Far-reaching
Golez's empowerment project has two distinctions:
• Technology goes to an organized group that has the capability of imparting the technology to a much wider population; and,
• The technology transfer does not occur in the middle of the process to correct a current practice; instead, it takes a systems approach that starts at the very beginning.
This way, potential inefficiencies in a multi-part system are avoided, and productive synergies are attained.
Empowerment is often considered in political terms. But as Golez's example shows, economic empowerment may be even more far reaching.
The transfer of technology from one to another, which is often the case, is of very limited value. It is recommended that all technology transfer programs should require an empowerment dimension. This means that due importance should be given to social organizations, which will be empowered to transfer technology. Then, we will have a multiplier effect, which is badly needed in our liberalized trade environment with extremely scarce agricultural budget support.
For more information on this model, please call Golez at +633 2371319 or KBB chairperson Tinding Manuzon at +6344 7640200 or 6780609.
The author is Agriwatch chairman; former Cabinet secretary for Presidential Flagship Programs and Projects, former undersecretary of agriculture, and former undersecretary of trade and industry. For inquiries and suggestions, email agriwatchphil@yahoo.com or call or fax +632 8522112.
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