Post
Topic
Board Project Development
Re: [International Donate] Building rice farms in the Philippines Funding goal 0.2B
by
orions.belt19
on 27/02/2021, 07:05:36 UTC
I have one question regarding the price of land in the Philippines - specifically in this case the agricultural land that will be used for rice cultivation. I don't know exactly what the size of the land is, but 0.2 BTC is around $10 000 at the current price - so even though you included all the other costs, I was somehow convinced that agricultural land in that part of the world would be much cheaper.

In my country (EU), a large proportion of workers earn that much throughout the year - although there are those who earn perhaps only 60-70% of that amount.
Most farmers in my country(Philippines) do not have their own land and most of them are part of a hacienda or ranch that is owned by the oligarchs. That money that hopefully gets donated might be able to help them pay their debts, buy seeds and buy their food. Filipino farmers are among the poorest in my country and there are only a few that gets lucky because those who asked for more are either killed or removed from the land, what I am saying is that they are always getting the short end of the stick.

Farmers don't have to buy lands to farm.
How about renting lands? Or the farmers could organize and move into forest or "no man's land" to farm.
I sometimes wonder why farmers don't take that risk to cut cost. They could even build temporary homes there to live close to the farms.


Most of the farmers don't actually own the lands they farm on and the downside here is how little the profit they get as most of it goes to the owners. Probably about 60% of the profit goes to the owner, then 40% to the farmers... nah, that's too generous. In reality it's more likely 70-80/30-40% ratio. If you think I'm exaggerating, you can read up the Hacienda Luisita fiasco which used to be hush hush for several years.

To farm on a "no man's land", that would most probably be considered as "squatting". They will most probably be driven away or even arrested. Most of the agricultural land left are at least owned by someone or the government. And yes, most farmers actually build their homes on the land where they farm. This becomes a conflict whenever the landowners decides to sell the farmland and the farmers loses not only their jobs but also their homes.