No Free Lunch
Listening to the poor
By Cielito Ha bito
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:36:00 04/19/2009
MANILA, Philippines- -I often talk about that farmer I interviewed some years ago after a tortuous ride through what could hardly qualify to be called a road, winding up the mountains of Sarangani to their small uplan= d farming community. Having been in government once upon a time, I like to ask simple folk the one most important thing they would ask of government if given the chance. Almost certain that this upland Sarangani farmer would point to their road badly in need of repair, I was surprised—and wisened—when the old man simply replied: "Horses. We could use a few horses to bring our produce down to the market."
The wisdom in that answer easily dawned on me. He had no illusions that money would be forthcoming to fix some seven kilometers of a narrow mountain road leading up to nowhere—actually to a couple of tiny farming communities with too few voters to matter. And that old farmer must have realized too that fixing their road would only put the still lush forests around them within reach of loggers' trucks.
Cheap fixes
Since then, I have pointed out that meeting our persistent development needs, and meeting the needs of our poor, need not be costly. To use a favorite example I cite in my economics classes, we don't have to run a truck over a nut to shell it.
It seems to me that all we need to do is simply to listen more. The poor know what they need only too well, more than any well-meaning government or NGO worker, and certainly more than any bureaucrat sitting in an air-conditioned office in Manila. And yet, despite all the hosannas in our development documents for devolution, decentralization and subsidiarity (translation: Taking decisions and actions at the lowest levels possible), the reality is that the smallest of decisions that affect the futures of even the remotest poor are still made in the central offices of government agencies. And when allowed to make these decisions, the fixes that are invariably favored are those involving large sums of money, for such things as subsidized fertilizers, imported hybrid seeds, piglets, goats, and yes, farm to pocket—er, market—roads. And unless you were born yesterday, you already know why.
Deaf ears
More recently, a study team I was with interviewed another upland farmer in what was described to be one of the poorest barangays in the country, also in Mindanao. His answer to my usual question, this time, was carab= aos. They needed carabaos to be able to till the land around them, which were noticeably farmable yet idle, in a place where rainfall comes all year round. We asked further what they actually got from the government. His answer? Fertilizers and hybrid seeds. "We take them anyway [even though we=2 0can't use them without the carabaos]," he remarked. We asked, "Did they ever ask you what it is that you really need?"—and got a negative answer.
To be fair, there was a government extension worker—a dedicated, energetic and highly motivated young lady—working closely with the community, clearly having that community's best interests in her mind and heart. Asked if she and her fellow extension workers had not communicated the actual needs of their client communities to their superiors, she insisted that they had done so countless times, but all these seem to fall on deaf ears. "All these programs come to us from Manila, and it seems nothing we tell them could ever change their thinking out there," was her rueful reply.
Changed economics
Another observation struck our team then: Many households we encountered had a small black native pig, which looked something like a wild boar or baboy damo, roaming around the yard. The government-distribu ted white pigs of the foreign Landrace variety were nowhere in sight—only these little black pigs. Landrace pigs could grow over a hundred kilos, but unless fed with commercial feeds and given a minimum of immunizations, get sick and die easily. (I should know; my father raised them in our backyard when I was young to augment my parents' meager salaries as teachers.) But the little black pigs could just be fed kitchen scraps and let loose in the=2 0yard to scrounge around for whatever food they can find. Little as they are, they provide a good source of additional cash in time of need, or of meat for the next festive occasion. And one need not go into debt to buy feeds and veterinary drugs to maintain them.
As an agricultural economics student at UP Los Baños many years ago, countless "costs and returns analyses" we used to do showed that improved varieties, whether in crops ("miracle rice", "miracle that") or livestock (Landrace pigs, Brahman cattle) made economic sense for the farmer. Even with the higher cost of the needed inputs (like fertilizers, chemicals, commercial feeds), the farmer would still make much more money. They key was to make sure farmers had the needed cash through farm credit—something we have failed to provide enough of to this date. Now, with costs of petroleum and farm inputs the way they are, it seems to me the economics have completely changed, and modern varieties do not necessarily bring mean more farm income. The farmer, in short, is being perfectly rational when he shuns hybrids to plant a hardy native rice variety, or shuns the Landrace in favor of the little black pig. Should we force him to do otherwise (and
enrich a few corrupt officials in the process)?
If we really want to help the poor, we simply need to listen to them more. They are much wiser than many of us tend to think—and indeed wiser than many of us, period.
Comments welcome at chabito@ateneo. edu
Listening to the poor
By Cielito Ha bito
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:36:00 04/19/2009
MANILA, Philippines- -I often talk about that farmer I interviewed some years ago after a tortuous ride through what could hardly qualify to be called a road, winding up the mountains of Sarangani to their small uplan= d farming community. Having been in government once upon a time, I like to ask simple folk the one most important thing they would ask of government if given the chance. Almost certain that this upland Sarangani farmer would point to their road badly in need of repair, I was surprised—and wisened—when the old man simply replied: "Horses. We could use a few horses to bring our produce down to the market."
The wisdom in that answer easily dawned on me. He had no illusions that money would be forthcoming to fix some seven kilometers of a narrow mountain road leading up to nowhere—actually to a couple of tiny farming communities with too few voters to matter. And that old farmer must have realized too that fixing their road would only put the still lush forests around them within reach of loggers' trucks.
Cheap fixes
Since then, I have pointed out that meeting our persistent development needs, and meeting the needs of our poor, need not be costly. To use a favorite example I cite in my economics classes, we don't have to run a truck over a nut to shell it.
It seems to me that all we need to do is simply to listen more. The poor know what they need only too well, more than any well-meaning government or NGO worker, and certainly more than any bureaucrat sitting in an air-conditioned office in Manila. And yet, despite all the hosannas in our development documents for devolution, decentralization and subsidiarity (translation: Taking decisions and actions at the lowest levels possible), the reality is that the smallest of decisions that affect the futures of even the remotest poor are still made in the central offices of government agencies. And when allowed to make these decisions, the fixes that are invariably favored are those involving large sums of money, for such things as subsidized fertilizers, imported hybrid seeds, piglets, goats, and yes, farm to pocket—er, market—roads. And unless you were born yesterday, you already know why.
Deaf ears
More recently, a study team I was with interviewed another upland farmer in what was described to be one of the poorest barangays in the country, also in Mindanao. His answer to my usual question, this time, was carab= aos. They needed carabaos to be able to till the land around them, which were noticeably farmable yet idle, in a place where rainfall comes all year round. We asked further what they actually got from the government. His answer? Fertilizers and hybrid seeds. "We take them anyway [even though we=2 0can't use them without the carabaos]," he remarked. We asked, "Did they ever ask you what it is that you really need?"—and got a negative answer.
To be fair, there was a government extension worker—a dedicated, energetic and highly motivated young lady—working closely with the community, clearly having that community's best interests in her mind and heart. Asked if she and her fellow extension workers had not communicated the actual needs of their client communities to their superiors, she insisted that they had done so countless times, but all these seem to fall on deaf ears. "All these programs come to us from Manila, and it seems nothing we tell them could ever change their thinking out there," was her rueful reply.
Changed economics
Another observation struck our team then: Many households we encountered had a small black native pig, which looked something like a wild boar or baboy damo, roaming around the yard. The government-distribu ted white pigs of the foreign Landrace variety were nowhere in sight—only these little black pigs. Landrace pigs could grow over a hundred kilos, but unless fed with commercial feeds and given a minimum of immunizations, get sick and die easily. (I should know; my father raised them in our backyard when I was young to augment my parents' meager salaries as teachers.) But the little black pigs could just be fed kitchen scraps and let loose in the=2 0yard to scrounge around for whatever food they can find. Little as they are, they provide a good source of additional cash in time of need, or of meat for the next festive occasion. And one need not go into debt to buy feeds and veterinary drugs to maintain them.
As an agricultural economics student at UP Los Baños many years ago, countless "costs and returns analyses" we used to do showed that improved varieties, whether in crops ("miracle rice", "miracle that") or livestock (Landrace pigs, Brahman cattle) made economic sense for the farmer. Even with the higher cost of the needed inputs (like fertilizers, chemicals, commercial feeds), the farmer would still make much more money. They key was to make sure farmers had the needed cash through farm credit—something we have failed to provide enough of to this date. Now, with costs of petroleum and farm inputs the way they are, it seems to me the economics have completely changed, and modern varieties do not necessarily bring mean more farm income. The farmer, in short, is being perfectly rational when he shuns hybrids to plant a hardy native rice variety, or shuns the Landrace in favor of the little black pig. Should we force him to do otherwise (and
enrich a few corrupt officials in the process)?
If we really want to help the poor, we simply need to listen to them more. They are much wiser than many of us tend to think—and indeed wiser than many of us, period.
Comments welcome at chabito@ateneo. edu
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