“We’re facing tough times in agriculture. But farmers are nothing if not resilient.” – John Motter
Consistently said, “Philippines is primarily an agricultural country with a large portion of Filipinos living in rural areas and supporting themselves through agriculture.”
About 25 percent of Filipinos are employed in the sector. These include farming, fisheries, livestock, and forestry. In 2021, agriculture generated a gross value added (GVA) of about 1.76 trillion Philippine pesos, equivalent to a 9.6 percent share of the country’s gross domestic product. The prolonged pandemic and the natural calamities including weather disturbances caused agriculture a blow that caused reduction in output that provided the government reason to undertake continuous import scheme.
UN-HEALING AND UN-ABATED IMPORTATION
No other than the President support agricultural importation. Taking a glance at the imports in the last couple of years we can glean the conventional and easiest way the government undertakes when lack of supply knocks on the door. It is no secret that the President supports importation under his regime, “We agreed to additional importation of sugar to stabilize the prices”, he stressed after the meeting held at the SRA led by SRA Acting Administrator Pablo Luis Azcona.
For its part, the Sugar Regulatory Administration SRA) in its Sugar Orders 2, 5 and 6 in accumulation has imported a total of more than half a million metric tons. The latest was order was marred controversy as it was “maliciously” dubbed as “legal smuggling” because the order came from Malacañang purportedly. Consequently, this led to the resignation of the SRA administrator who, reportedly did not agree with the idea.
In 2022, imports of cereals into the Philippines amounted to approximately four billion U.S. dollars, making it the leading agricultural import. The second leading commodity group in terms of import value was residues and waste from the food industries, which amounted to about 2.5 billion U.S. dollars.
SPARKLING ECONOMIC SCENARIO IN 2023
On the other hand, latest data for rice imports jumped by 42 percent to 2.98 million MT as of September 29 last year from 2.09 million metric tons imported in the same period in 2021. This volume already exceeded the 2.77 million metric tons of rice imported for the entire 2021 by 7 percent.
Vietnam remained the top supplier, cornering 82 percent of the total volume at 2.46 million MT, followed by Myanmar with 203,879.28 MT, and Thailand with 150,416.37 MT.
High cost of fertilizer is attributed as one of the reasons for the importation. Also, the Rice Tariffication Law of 2020 paved the way for this un-abated entry of this major product in the country. In South East Asia, rice is a staple.
Last year, the vegetable, fruit and nut food netted a total of US$453.45 million according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. This is the data this month – was last updated on June of 2023.
Over-all, the agricultural import of the Philippines amounted to a staggering USD 26.80 billion that grew at an average rate of 19 percent in the past 3 years. However, in trade the country decreased by 7.1 percent.
RECHANNELING INVESTMENT AND PURSUING AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY
There are three important things that we can sum-up. One, Philippines remains to be an agricultural country that it significantly contributes to the economy in terms of trade and job generation.
Finally, it is unfortunate that with its value and great significance the government continue to take an unfavorable importation policy to the detriment of our major products and producers when the country’s potential of agricultural productivity can be un-imaginable if re-invested with enough capitalization and manpower which we, certainly have with adequate research and planning. It does not take a genius to understand the basics.
In undertaking this, Negros can one of the prime movers. It is one of the major producers of rice with irrigation technology, facilities and sources that only needs re-engineering and improvement, produces more than half of the sugar output of the country and leads the region in poultry and livestock industry. This is not withstanding – it is the organic capital of the South East Asia.
Growth and development must be comprehensive and inclusive – to keep the info-technology reach unprecedented level, infrastructure developed, create jobs required to the need of the times. Thus, the prime and the motive force of development – its people must be fed. This is agriculture.*
