A tip for our farmers
Media
Part of The Cross
- Title
- A tip for our farmers
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1952
- Rights
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- Fulltext
- MAY, 1952 asked. "I'm on my way to Mindanao," he answered, "I think it's my duty to do something for my country." May their blessed tribe increase! A TIP FOR OUR FARMERS WHO and ECA officials it seems are indulging in too much verbosity. Their official reports carry an impressive array of figures presumably calculoled to convert any desert into a "land flowing with milk and honey." Perhaps it has worked out in certain isolated instances. But with all respect for the good that the WHO and ECA are doing the solution that could bring underdeveloped areas to the peak of production is startingly simple. In an article we have read, World Hunger and One Nun (see page 34 of this issue) a strip of barren land in China was brought up to its full production capacity by a group of enterprising convent nuns. Their only capital — common sense ond industry. ’ The story of these nuns should make our would-be economics and farmers who harp too much on their lock of capital blush with shame. In this simple story is the proof that a land no matter how poor its soil quality can be made amazingly productive with only those two requisites we have mentioned as capital—common sense and industry. And our soil in the Philippines is rich! 100 MEN AND A MANGO In the "Sunday Timas" for April 13, we read a story about the low per capita incom|p in the Philippines. Here, the statistics tell us, the overage annual wage is only P232.74, one of the lowest in the world. Every other country of which there is available records, with one single exception, have higher ■ wcges. Some countries are much higher, with the United States leading with a per capita income of P3,151.18. Surely this is lamentable. We agree that higher wages are needed and are most desirable. However, such situations ore not remedied by just talking about them or by waving a magic wand. The "Sunday Times" article foils to mention onother very important point, namely, that the per capita wealth in the Philippines is also very low. Compared to the United States, for example, the wealth of the average Filipino is only one-fifteenth of the average Americon. In other words, our per capita income has almost exactly the same proportion to our per capita wealth as the per capita income of the United States has to its per capita wealth.