Believe it or not.

[Viking]

6 hours ago, Onemore52 said:

I do not read the news because of all the political garbage on the tv and then all the advertising, I would rather go outside and throw balls to the dogs.

So JGF everyone to their own.

You do as you want, of course, but then there will be surprises like this when you go shopping 😜

[Viking]

45 minutes ago, JJReyes said:

The Philippines prides itself as a strong agriculture producer.

We used to export rice, now we import rice.  We used to export sugar, now we import sugar.  Now it's onions.  Maybe garlic is next.

See all those coconut trees?  They were planted more or less during the same time period when there was a global demand for copra.  After 80 or 90 years, the trees become senile - meaning, they stop producing nuts.  Soon the Philippines may have to import copra to produce vegetable oil.

 

Agriculture is pretty labor intensive and the young people rather want to live and work in the cities.

The population of the Philippines has basically doubled since 1985 so the need for agricultural products have probably doubled as well.

[hk blues]

3 minutes ago, Viking said:

Agriculture is pretty labor intensive and the young people rather want to live and work in the cities.

The population of the Philippines has basically doubled since 1985 so the need for agricultural products have probably doubled as well.

I'd go further and say that young people don't really want to do manual labour of any kind, instead preferring to work in service-type jobs.  This is a global trend and most certainly not unique to the Philippines. Luckily, in more developed countries automation has replaced those roles but, as we know, automation is a four-letter word here in the main.  Hence, the need to import more agricultural products than before.

[Dave Hounddriver]

7 hours ago, JJReyes said:

See all those coconut trees?  They were planted more or less during the same time period when there was a global demand for copra.  After 80 or 90 years, the trees become senile - meaning, they stop producing nuts.

Most of the older Filipino farmers I know have been smart enough to cut down a tree that stops producing and plant a new one.  I do know that the younger farmers are not so interested in farming so perhaps the trees you refer to are on land that was inherited by someone who does not want to feck around with them.

[JJReyes]

1 hour ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Most of the older Filipino farmers I know have been smart enough to cut down a tree that stops producing and plant a new one.  I do know that the younger farmers are not so interested in farming so perhaps the trees you refer to are on land that was inherited by someone who does not want to feck around with them.

You are correct.  The system is still sharecropper with the landowner residing in the city and someone else tills the land or harvest coconuts.  There is very little interest in investing for the future because the potential revenue stream is low.  Agrarian reform limits the size of land you can own that is planted to rice, sugar and coconut.  The idea was to force large landowners to sell their plantations to tenants.  Today's agriculture requires mechanization due to the cost of labor.  The cost of equipment is prohibitive for small farmers.  

[Dave Hounddriver]

51 minutes ago, JJReyes said:

Agrarian reform limits the size of land you can own that is planted to rice, sugar and coconut.  The idea was to force large landowners to sell their plantations to tenants.

Is that a recent thing?  It might explain my wife's father suddenly being able to buy his small farm from the previous owner at a very fair price.  Her father has been sharecropping a 2 hectare tenant farm for 30 years and the owner finally came to him and offered to sell at 250K pesos.  Very fair price on the open market, but we assumed the owner had grown a heart after 30 years (or got tired of the pittance he gets from 1/3 the crop)

[OnMyWay]

12 hours ago, JJReyes said:

After 80 or 90 years, the trees become senile - meaning, they stop producing nuts.

Sounds like 

[Onemore52]

12 hours ago, Viking said:

You do as you want, of course, but then there will be surprises like this when you go shopping 😜

Nowhere did I say that I did not know the price of onions, as my partner keeps me informed of anything relevant, the crux of my post was that the retailers require a certification to sell the onions.

[JJReyes]

4 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Is that a recent thing?  It might explain my wife's father suddenly being able to buy his small farm from the previous owner at a very fair price.  Her father has been sharecropping a 2 hectare tenant farm for 30 years and the owner finally came to him and offered to sell at 250K pesos.  Very fair price on the open market, but we assumed the owner had grown a heart after 30 years (or got tired of the pittance he gets from 1/3 the crop)

I believe agrarian reform started sometime during the era of Marcos the First.  Can't remember the details, but I recall the size limit is around 5 hectares provided it is not planted to rice, sugarcane or coconut.  Larger land holdings are still possible if you have clever lawyers who know how to get around the law.  For example, developers like Ayala Land purchase 600 hectares of agriculture land for future development.  How is this possible?

[Tommy T.]

Just to confirm some previous posts. Yesterday, L told me that there were no onions available in any stores she visited yesterday or the day before. We still have one yellow and 4 red onions left.... I will be lost not being able to use onions in my cooking!S**t!!