Yes, we can easily produce more agriculturists

The Philippines is an agricultural country, so they say.

- POPOY DE VERA

But with the laggard contribution of agriculture to our GDP (declining from 8.5 percent to 8.1 percent), the continuous importation of rice (now the world's largest importer), the political promise of P20 kilo rice and the pressure to now feed 116 million hungry mouths, it seems like agricultural modernization is becoming a mission impossible.

One of the sad findings of the 1997 Congressional Commission on Agriculture (AGRICOM), where I served as executive director, was that the Filipino farmer was getting very old. Estimates over the past decade were between 57-59 years old and policy makers have been scratching their heads on how to reverse this trend and convince more graduates to go to agriculture.

How do you do it? One challenge is how to make the curriculum more exciting so more students will enroll in agriculture and agriculture-related courses.

After all, the bias against agriculture remains strong. Remember when we were chanting "planting rice is never fun" in high school?

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has reorganized its Technical Panel on Agriculture with stalwarts from the academe, industry and government, attracting no less than Chooks to Go founder Ronald Mascariñas and SEARCA director general Glen Gregorio. A new curriculum (CMO 23 series of 2021) was issued, emphasizing an outcome-based education aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

One problem that appears intractable is that while so many enroll, so many fail the licensure examination for agriculture (LEA).