The recent documentary Magtanim ay ‘di biro by Kara David was about the sad reality for our farmers.

Farmers who stay under the sun for hours and doing physical work to give food to our country.

It was hard and painful to watch that to those who went through that struggle and still in that struggle and to me who tries to show how wonderful it is to become a farmer or at least get involved in agriculture. It makes you feel hopeless for the farming sector of our country or even the country as a whole.

In every part of the world, we have agriculture to sustain the quantity and quality of food the people need. Farmers in different places have their own struggles in growing crops alone and in the Philippines, the bad road and supply chain adds up to what they already had to deal with during the growing season.

Imagine a farmer without crop insurance and uncertain market for their produce will risk a whopping P40000 ($900) to earn at the end of the season of P6000 ($120) or worst nothing! In any business, it will drag you to bankruptcy and debt. The young generation will not want to become a farmer to experience what their farmer parents did.

A heartbreaking reality that we can all help in our own little ways by trying to find them a direct market to eliminate the cost for middlemen or if you are close to that farm, find another way to sell them like using our social media platforms.

I guess we cannot solely rely to our leaders anymore in helping our farmers. If you know an avenue to empower our farmers, let us do it!