‘Camella farms’

I have just been informed by small farms and backyard farm owners that property taxes in the City of Lipa have substantially increased. While this may be part of growing urbanization and the need of local governments to raise income for programs and projects, the impact on farm owners, agriculture and productivity is a serious concern that is often overlooked.

I have learned from past experience that the saying “No taxes without consultation” has become a myth if not a joke after the Local Government Code was passed by Congress. Since then, a number of local government units have simply done “table mapping and taxation” but without proper research and consultation. They do so because they can.

What these armchair local legislators and appraisers fail to realize is that there is a huge difference between the size of residential-commercial properties compared to “farm lots,” agricultural properties or backyard farms. While city lots or businesses range from about 200 to 1,000 sq meters, farm lots often start at 2,500 sqm, 10,000 sqm to 100,000 sqm upwards.

What may seem affordable to urban dwellers becomes an economic shock to farm lot owners and farmers in general. Ironically, farms and farmers are the last to benefit from LGU projects that prioritize infrastructure and commercial development and not farm-to-market roads. To this day, there are many areas in the provinces, even in Lipa City, where roads to farms are still packed mud and gravel and not paved roads. They don’t have running water or street lighting even in the age of solar streetlamps.

Hopefully this article will reach LGU officials, the Department of Agriculture as well as the DILG, to pay attention to this poorly studied approach of table taxation that also disregards land classifications stamped on titles that say “AGRICULTURAL LAND.” If the practice continues, then there is a strong possibility that the only remaining farms we will see will be up in the “bundocks.” I recently visited the Visayas, and someone shared a “loaded joke” where rice farmers called their farms “Camella Farms.”

I did not get it at first, so they explained that farming has become so unprofitable that there is a future