Meanwhile, back in the old farm lot...

WHILE many continue to be fascinated with the continuing saga of the botched NBN deal and the sale of the nation’s sovereignty, the country’s great mass of underprivileged must make do with what they have just to survive. The thought of millions or billions made in illegal commissions must boggle the mind, but may be viewed as ironic in the face of people struggling to make a daily wage or to feed a gathering brood. Almost three decades ago, certain like-minded friends and corporate entities put together the first of a series of what are now called Family Farm Schools. The first one went up in Lipa, on land donated by the Ayala group. (My friend Tony Laurel of the Ayala agribusiness group remembers this particular donation.) The family farm school is one attempt to keep the children of small landowning families continuing to work on the family plots of land. In a way, the schools seek to reverse the trend of most families that finds their children migrating to the urbanized areas of the country, leaving otherwise productive lands fallow or underproductive. The schools use a combination of classroom and actual on-the-job training. Since most of the students come from a certain radius distance from the school, they are expected to spend half of their time working back on their small farms, applying the concepts that they had picked up in the school during the previous week. The schools’ faculty members go on the road and review the implementation by each student of specific assignments given them. Initially, many of the families concerned sent their second or least promising sons to the first school in Lipa, figuring that they would not lose anything by doing so. Typically, the eldest would then go off to the metro area to seek his fortune and, hopefully, send enough money home to keep the family out of a state of penury. Later on, when the parents saw how their sons -– and their farms -– progressed, they were astounded as their less-promising sons began to leave their older siblings in their wake. It is projects like the Family Farm Schools that contribute to the general sense of well-being in the nation. Better yet, small plots of land that would have otherwise been sold off or left fallow continue to remain productive. The sad news is that these Family Farm Schools try to do so much but do not appear sexy enough to potential contributors, leaving them in a perpetual state of trying to make do with so little. Pity.