IN the late 1960s to early 1980s, there were droves of Thai students who pursued their graduate studies in agriculture and agriculture-related fields at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños (UPLB). Then in the late 1980s, spilling over the early 2000s, the Thai students were replaced by Vietnamese students who enrolled in agriculture and agriculture-related fields of expertise on the same campus. By the late 2000s until today, another bunch of students, this time coming from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, flocked to UPLB again to specialize in agriculture and agriculture-related studies.

Many have noted the irony of it all. We trained students from these countries and it turned out that their agriculture sector is now far more developed and competitive than ours. In particular, Thailand is exporting more than $40-billion worth of agricultural goods annually while Vietnam is nearly at the $30-billion mark. On the other hand, Philippine agricultural exports are only worth between $5 and $6 billion annually. Thailand has more than 20 agricultural exports that have a higher value than $250,000 per year while Vietnam has more than 10 agricultural products being exported at a higher value of $250,000 per year. The Philippines has only three agricultural exports (i.e., copra, banana and pineapple) that are worth more than the $250,000 figure.