Independent senatorial candidate Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson wants Filipinos to view agriculture as a major high-tech driver of food security and economic growth, and not as a backward sector for “poor” farmers.
Lacson said this is why he is preparing legislation that will prepare young Filipinos to take up agriculture and eventually make the Philippines a food-secure and agriculture exporting country, should he return to the Senate.
“We need to change our mindset. We must look at agriculture as high-tech and not the traditional image of a farmer manually tilling the land with a carabao. That is a very outdated impression of agriculture,” he said.
“In Europe, farmers become wealthy because of agriculture. It may be only in the Philippines where farmers are associated with poverty,” he added.
Related: Ping Lacson, Nais Baguhin ang Pananaw sa Agrikultura: ‘High-Tech,’ Hindi ‘Paurong’
