Lakas-Kampi-CMD standard bearer Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. Sunday vowed to improve the farmers’ plight by helping them obtain modern farming methodology in order to boost their food productivity and at the time, preventing them from joining the ranks of rebel groups.

Teodoro, who served as secretary of defense for two years, said the country’s poor agricultural system has spawned the long-running insurgency.

“We must make entrepreneurs of our farmers. We must teach them modern technology to improve their food production capability,” Teodoro said.

More than the welfare of the farmers, he said, is the need to boost agricultural production to “safeguard against a food crisis in the future,” Teodoro told a forum of agricultural experts in Tarlac.

The challenge to the agriculture industry involves the food security of our young, the 1989 Bar topnotcher and Harvard-trained lawyer said, adding measures have be taken immediately to address this.

“We will ensure that the farmers will grow rich from their endeavors — and that we will increase agricultural productivity so that we will no longer be the largest importer of rice,” he added.

The decades-old rebellion of the New People’s Army, and the Hukbalahap before that, were hatched out of the dire economic situation of agricultural workers, Teodoro said.

The insurgency must be stopped in conflict areas, where the return of peace and stability can turn land into productive endeavors, he said.