Of Farms and Chains

At the start of the Industrial Revolution in Britain and Europe, the nature of work shifted drastically from farm to factory. In a span of 50 short years, settlements and factories could be found next to each other, while farming areas were slowly depopulated.

Farm based enterprises were seen as vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather and the infestation of pests and diseases. Early industrialists also saw farm based enterprise as a constricted labor generating resource.

Populations increase every year, while land area remain fixed. The only way to increase land was to go to war - a primitive method, or to acquire colonies in the “new world” – a primitive form of globalization. It was observed that farm input cost tended to increase over time, while the purchase value of farm products tended to decrease over time. Farming could no longer provide work to a growing population, and was seen as unsustainable over time. Industrialization was seen as the solution to this debacle.

Farm based employment in the old world decreased through the years compared to factory based work. Most residents of farming areas migrated to places where factory work was available, while the more daring ones moved to the colonies in the new world to become industrial farmers.

You can fill in the details as to what happened to the places that got colonized by the European powers, which is a long story in itself.

Factories produced tangible goods that were needed by an increasing population. The increase in demand for these goods increased with population. Factories could continue to provide employment for a growing population. One simple product produced by factories was soap. All permutations of soap based products were produced by the Lever industrial complex.

Every thing that we do not eat comes from a factory somewhere. Factory or Industrial based economies are more versatile.

But this does not mean there is no hope for Farm based initiatives. We are now living in the future that people living at the start of the Industrial Revolution envisioned. We have access to information at our finger tips. We have access to technology dreamed of a long time ago.

We need to find ways to make farming in Mindanao more efficient. Achieving efficiency will need a purposive decision to assess present farming practices through a comprehensive approach involving all stakeholders – from all levels of the farming supply chain, so points of inefficiency are weeded out.