Breaking Agriculture Misconceptions of the Youth

Youths are the primary productive human resource of socio-economic and literacy development. It is essential to identify the roles of youth in the mainstream of the agriculture sector. The line by the Filipino Polymath Jose Rizal, "Ang Kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan," is a mustard seed of hope and relative to the agricultural involvement of the millennials.

The socio-economic and literacy development of generation Z lies ahead on their knowledge in the agriculture development of the Philippines. The hurdles of poverty, poverty-related mindset, and lack of operational integration and development in farming drift away from the interest of the youth in agriculture practice. These factors imprinted into the minds of the young generation to have misconceptions of the potential in making the agriculture sector of the Philippines continue. The age average of the Filipino farmers is 57 years old, contributing to agriculture misconceptions. The top three misconceptions behind farming are Farming is primitive and low tech, Farmers are generally uneducated, and Farmers are poor.

The hurdles of poverty created a margin to the image of farming in the Philippines and is wrongly apprehended as farmers being poor. Seeing the face and living of the farmers, it makes sense that the current state of the countries farming methods and the market is far from the countries that emphasize farming as the main sort of living in their countryside. Here in the Philippines, farmers plant for haciendas and owners. On the other side, farmers in countries such as USA and Canada farm their land given by the government.

The poverty-related mindset of White-collar jobs versus blue-collar jobs contributes to the thoughts of the youth that farming is not a technical sector and does not need to learn in school. This mindset runs around families who fills their plate by farming. This generational mindset created a massive impact on agriculture declination. In the mind of youth, success revolves around office jobs and capitalistic practices as believed to lift themselves to the poverty line. With this, it creates the image of someone successful. White-collar jobs are the basis and society's highest hierarchy of success by a poverty-related mindset.

Lastly, lack of operational integration and development in farming as primitive and low tech is the greatest misconception and reality. As of 2021, foodsov.org stated that Philippine Agriculture is 20 years behind the country, making agriculture one of the most underdeveloped sectors.

The trajectory of concept and mindset towards agriculture of the young generation should be the primary goal of the government. The old generation farmers should learn new techniques and opportunities to break barriers to the misconceptions in farming and agriculture.

The challenge of globalization in the agriculture sector is ever-changing and continues to change. With this, the Department of Agriculture (DA) is developing new techniques and programs that engage the youth to be invested in agriculture and transform the dire situation of the farming activity. Taking Agriculture as Studies and business will arise young farmers in the generations to come.