Glad To Know Mr Duterte Is For Inclusive Development!

Eureka! I found something to be very thankful for in Rodrigo Roa Duterte's  being President of my country, and it's 2 years old! I hound the Internet many times a day and I thought I was up-to-date about this one, until William Dar's column today, 11 July 2019 ("The Power Of Technology And Innovation In Agriculture," manilatimes.net), in which Mr Dar says this:

President Duterte knows the value of science and technology, and they form part of his 10-Point Socioeconomic Agenda, specifically to "promote science, technology and the creative arts to enhance innovation and creative capacity towards self-sustaining, inclusive development."

The last 17 words in that quote are the ones pregnant in meaning, positive meanings – I read that Agenda before and I should have rejoiced with those 17 words!

It is like Mr Duterte is saying: Promote the sciences & arts to enhance the Filipino capacity towards inclusive development.

In the image above (original from sappi, sappi.com), Prosperity has 2 sides: Growth and Development. Growth is inclusive of the rich (red) while Development is inclusive of the poor (green). 

In ICRISAT's formulation when Mr Dar was still Director General of that India-based international agricultural science center, inclusive development ensures that the poor farmers will rise out of poverty as they are assisted in the marketing of their produce. 

So, I take it that inclusive development is where Mr Dar is coming from when he says in his Times' column

What are among the most important factors in attaining the objective of making smallholder farmers and fisherfolk more prosperous? ¶ I have answers: Technology and innovation, plus markets.

Now then, if in the meantime we are only after poverty reduction(inclusive growth) and not poverty eradication (inclusive development), then we must, as Mr Dar says, use technology and innovation to:

(1)   Increase farmer productivity

(2)   Double the farmers' income

(3)   Make them competitive in the world market

(4)   Help the farmers become resilient amidst climate change.

Mr Dar does not discuss them here but I will now:

Productivity – Farmers must be taught how to increase yields of their crops and how to increase the fertility of their soils without applying expensive fertilizers.

Income – Farmers must decrease their costs of production in order to increase their incomes. Farmers today are not aware of this simple economic reasoning.

Competitiveness – Filipino farmers are more expensive than their Asean counterparts. For instance, our farmers grow rice at P12/kilo when Thai farmers can grow the same at P8/kilo and Vietnamese farmers can grow at P6/kilo. What do not our Filipino farmers know? That is the duty of the Department of Agriculture to find out!

Resilience – Filipino farmers should stop complaining about the dry weather and learn how to tap the natural ability of the soil to store water for plants. They must also learn how to store rainwater for the next crop.

And you know what? What I said in the last 4 paragraphs above I learned when I was international consulting writer (for 8 years) of ICRISAT when Mr Dar was Director General (for 15 years). We need science leaders like him!517