What the Alex Eala experience can teach the agri sector

Alex Eala is the personification of “laban.” According to reddit.com, Laban means “to keep fighting even when you feel like giving up.” Laban is the word Filipinos shout as they cheer Eala to successively win in international tennis tournaments. It is this Laban attitude our agriculture sector needs today.

In agriculture, we used to be way ahead of Vietnam and Thailand. Today, we are far behind them in agriculture exports, which can provide needed jobs in the countryside. Consider the Table shown here.

The sad situation shown in the table should encourage, rather than dampen, our Laban spirit, as Eala has repeatedly shown in her amazing journey. There is hope with this administration. Last year, proof is that our 19-percent agricultural export growth rate exceeded Vietnam’s 13 percent and Thailand’s 3 percent.

Article continues after this advertisement

Can we continue this momentum? Yes, but only if we combine the Laban spirit with the proper difficult preparation, the way Eala did.

FEATURED STORIES

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

Proper preparation

At the age of 13, Eala left the safety of home to prepare for her dream realization in the Rafa Nadal Academy at Mallorca, Spain. Her Laban spirit and rigorous difficult training there enabled her to win the 2020 Australian Open girls’ doubles title, the 2021 French Open girls’ doubles title and the 2022 US Open girls’ singles title.

Recently, Eala suffered two severe set backs. Last May 26, she lost to Iva Jovic at the Female Open. Two weeks later, in a much more devastating manner, Eala she lost to Jovic again at the Queen’s Club London championships. This could have crushed Eala.

The opposite happened. With firm resolve and the Laban spirit, she went on to win the Lexus Birmingham title. She defeated World No. 2 Elena Rybanka and World No. 8 Elina Svitolina in the Berlin Open.

We must note that Laban must be accompanied by the proper preparation to win. In the Philippine cacao industry, Charita Fuentespina, just like Eala, has both. Her proper preparation, helped by the Marscoco Sustainable Team and the PUM-NL NGO, coupled with her strong Laban attitude, did wonders. In 2017, she won the “Top 50 beans in the World” award from the Cacao of Excellence (COEX) in Paris, France. In 2021, she achieved the almost impossible: the Gold Award of “Best Drinking Chocolate in the World” from the International Chocolate Meals in Hanover, Germany.

Article continues after this advertisement

Fuentespina’s colleagues, whose preparation she guides at the Philippine Cacao Industry Association, have won top honors at the global COEX award ceremonies every single year since 2017. This is where more than 200 entries from at least 30 cacao-producing countries compete, where the Philippines has unfailingly and consistently won.

On June 13, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu-Laurel Jr. identified three necessary preparation elements for our agriculture.

Article continues after this advertisement

These are: 1) nurseries for planting materials for massive production; 2) clustering with the proper economies of scale to address our fragmented holder production; and (3) shared processing facilities to produce high-value goods, many of which can be exported to produce more jobs.

Budget

To have Laban and the proper preparation without adequate government budget support would be disastrous. Unfortunately, the 2027 agriculture export budget submitted to Congress is very inadequate. The proposed High-Value Crops Commercialization 2 (HVCC2) budget for 16 priority agriculture export crops is only P385 million. This is less than the HVCC3 P400 million budget for one crop the has high domestic and export potential, and much less than the approximately P4 billion for all the other crops in HVCC1.

On June 18, the International Trade Committee of the public-private Philippine Council of Agriculture and Fisheries found this almost absurd, given the strategic importance of agriculture exports. They recommended P2 billion to P4 billion as a bare minimum for this critical sector. Just as Eala needs financial support to enable the winning formula of Laban and preparation to actually take place, so should Congress provide the necessary budget for agriculture exports.

To optimize the learnings from the Eala experience, we should do three things. First, we must carry her Laban spirit, despite the difficult odds. Second, we must undertake the difficult but proper preparation. Third, Congress must approve a much larger budget for agriculture export crops. This way, Secretary Tiu-Laurel can actualize the winning laban and proper preparation formula from the Eala experience, and our agriculture sector could finally move significantly forward. INQ

The author is Agriwatch chair, former secretary of presidential flagship programs and projects and former undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry.

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.

Your subscription has been successful.

Contactis [email protected]