Taking on a Legacy

ERNESTO E. MAIPID, JR

The eldest of 12 children, Candida ‘Ayds’ Adalla, grew up in a farming community in Mindoro.

‘Our parents were farmers. In childhood, we enjoyed nature at its best and experienced all agri-chores from planting to harvesting all kinds of crops and vegetables grown on our farm. We also fed chickens and pigs.

As young farmhands, we knew the joy of a good harvest and the pain of calamities, like typhoons, floods, and droughts that take their toll on our crops!’

“Tatay always reminded us to love the land. ‘Mamahalin n’yo ang lupa. Kung paano n’yo ito aalagaan, ganoon din ang  babalik sa inyo!’ (Always care for the land. However you tend it, the same will return to you.’)

Ayds’ father’s constancy, commitment, and dedication to growing the natural environment as a farmer made a deep imprint in her heart. In college, she pursued agriculture at the University of the Philippines in Los Banos (UPLB), Laguna.

Women in the family were discouraged from pursuing a college education then. Society rationalized that because they will marry and raise a family anyway, seeing them through higher education will not prove gainful. ‘But Tatay was insistent, and he risked on me. He dreamed that one of us 12 would pursue agriculture. I felt his heartbeat, and so I picked up the challenge. Knowing how determinedly Tatay worked for it and his high expectations, I vowed to excel and give my all to my studies.’

Ayds graduated and, true to her code of excellence, pursued her Master’s and a Doctorate in Entomology, staying at UPLB for eight years.

After 43 years of teaching, where she started as an instructor at the College of Agriculture in 1972, she retired as a full professor in 2015.

She became UPLB Director of Institutional Linkages in 1995, Director of Student Affairs in 1998, and was made Dean of the College of Agriculture in 2000, holding the post for six years.

Ayds takes pride that her deanship worked to make agricultural education formal (through the Commission on Higher Education) and non-formal (through various professional training courses and seminars by private groups and government agencies). Further, her team developed and aligned the curricula with Asian and world experiences. But Ayds herself says the work is far from finished.

‘We have much more to do, though!’  Reviewing the continuum of institutional preparation and actual ground realities, Ayds notes the vast difference. She says, ‘Profit-motivated agribusiness groups employ some agriculture graduates. These groups are sometimes dictated by foreign consultants who pursue technologies that need assessment regarding adaptability, profitability, and sustainability to our country’s conditions and situations. Many consultants market their agri-inputs, machinery, and greenhouse facilities to us.

Others who land in government service become absorbed and eaten by hostile systemic forces. Those who are left go back to farming, and encounter difficulties and challenges, putting knowledge and learnings together amidst practical farm realities. These cover lack of appropriate resources and government support for capital and infrastructure. And while there are government programs like the ‘Assistance to Young Farmers’, these need to be re-visited and implemented seriously by people of merit, with a determination to succeed,’ Ayds quips.

‘To my mind, we need to do three things,’ Ayds elaborates.

‘First, we need a systemic program for initially hand-holding fresh agriculture graduates to get their hands soiled and make clean earnings through productive and sustainable farming.’

‘Second, we need to assure that precious government funding support meant to assist small and marginalized farmers are accessed by and accrued to those truly in need.’

‘And third, we need to install people of genuine passion and commitment to the advocacy, as they are key to this sector’s success. Many wish to help, but when confronted by challenges that make service difficult and bring them out of their comfort zones, they start to rationalize and point to the government as responsible for delivering this service, anyway; then give up and quit.’

Inspired by the simple farmer her father was, Ayds strove for the kill in agricultural education and experience, inspiring the youth as she continues to pursue her best for the land that God has endowed so much. Heroism shouts, even quietly!