Weather plays a vital role in the lives of these farmers. They're at the mercy of nature's bounty or victims of its vengeance. The El Niño weather phenomenon recently hit the islands. This global pattern delivered a powerful blow to farmers everywhere. Crops ranging from rice to sugarcane suffered from the deficit of moisture and rain. Everything dried up, including the farmer's hopes for a decent harvest.

When the La Niña (the opposite of El Niño) arrived, it seemed to be a blessing for the crops when it brought with it the promise of abundant rains. Unfortunately, such event happened to be a double-edged sword. As much as water was flowing back, it also brought land slides and floods.

The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo near Subic Naval Base and Clark Air Field (former bases of the US Armed Forces) buried the Pampanga's crops below 4 ft. of ash and debris. Precious topsoil disappeared, making farming futile. Towns were leveled to look like vast deserts and rivers were congested with volcanic rocks and sediments. This was just an example of Mother Nature's wrath man. Unfortunately, the poor had to suffer the most.

Corruption in the Philippines is an evil that affects everything in the country. Abuses such as absentee landlordism, monopolies, and the overboard export of Philippine crops continue to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. It has forever tipped the scale between the elite and the masses.

Despite of all this, the success or failure of Philippine agriculture is relied on the farmer. He's the one who toils under the sun, scatters the seed and harvests the fruit. Empowered him with vital knowledge and equip him with modern tools, then he will in turn progress the industry and make it grow for the benefit of the nation.

• Absentee Landlordism: The owner of a plot of land gets the lion's share of what the farmers harvest. The farmers actually get to keep only a relatively small portion of what they harvested.

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