MANILA, Philippines — For working very hard, farmers in the Philippines are not supposed to be poor. But they are despite the huge amount of effort they exert in tilling the lands.

Thus observed by Kim Bo-Suk, director of Wecan Global Co., Ltd., a leader in Korean agricultural machinery industry, as he pushed for mechanized farming in the country.

According to Kim, mechanized farming can improve the unfortunate plight of Filipino farmers, many of whom belong to the poorest sector of the Philippine society.

“In Korea, farmers are rich because they work hard. Farmers in the Philippines should be richer because they work harder,” Kim, who witnessed manual farming in various parts of the country, said.

Providing Filipino farmers the needed machineries, Kim said, can help increase their productivity and keep up with their counterparts in Korea and other neighboring countries where farming is already mechanized.

He pointed out that throughout history, farming has been one of the most labor-intensive occupation known to man, from preparing the soil to planting seed to gathering the harvest to processing the crop.

"Mechanized agriculture allows more land to be cultivated by fewer people, increasing the overall yield and makes work faster. To start mechanizing farmers, they need basic machinery which includes tractors, rotavators, transplanters and rice mills. These machineries will help them till, plant, cultivate and process their harvest to a higher production rate," Kim explained.

Kim was glad to reveal that such useful euipments can be found in Korea where they are manufactured by Wecan Global Co., the only firm representing the Korea Agriculture Machinery Industry Cooperative (KAMICO).

KAMICO is the only agricultural cooperative in Korea and is currently working with the Korean government in helping the Philippines improve its agricultural sector.

The executive said funding for the said machineries poses no problems for the Filipino farmers since the Korean government is willing to lend a hand through its official development assistance (ODA) to the Philippines.

Under its Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCG) arrangement, the South Korean government recently increased its ODA commitment to the Philippines from $300 million to $500 million in July 2011.Among the sectors given priority for ESDF funding is agriculture, according to the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA).

In November last year, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak visited the Philippines and reiterated to President Benigno Aquino III his country’s commitment under the ESDF.During the state visit, the two countries signed two pacts that would provide a mechanism for the Philippines to avail of a maximum $500 million in “soft loans” from 2011 to 2013 from Korea’s EDCF and a framework for a “grant aid” until 2016. (BCM)