THE HAT THAT’S TOO HOT
President Marcos Jr.’s decision to assume the agriculture portfolio has thrust him into a perfect storm of challenges, but he isn’t backing down.
IN what industry leaders and former high-ranking government officials have described as unprecedented, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s decision to head the Department of Agriculture (DA) could really be one for the books.
But such a historic feat may not come so easy for Marcos the agriculture chief as he must face a myriad of problems—many of them systemic, and many newly emerging from recent local and global developments like war and the pandemic—that are hounding the sector.
Indeed, many of these problems have been perennial to farmers and fishermen; but were deepened by challenges that arose from the Covid-19 pandemic and disruptions in the global economy; and most recently, the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Marcos’s predecessor, twocos] time Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar, did not mince words in saying that the President will face a “pandemic-like” challenge in managing the country’s food supply and prices amid an ongoing global food crisis.
Presidential power
LEADERS across all agriculture industries from producers to agribusinesses, importers and processors unanimously concur that, with Marcos as its concurrent head, the DA would now have its much-needed political will.
“At long last, the sector will get the support it needs. With [MarJr. as DA [secretary], who’s the congressman or senator that will oppose his programs?” former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said, partly in Filipino.
Given the immensity of his political capital as a President who came to power on a stunning 31-million vote, Marcos’s first task is to hike the agriculture department’s budget for next year in order to fuel the task of salvaging the sector from crumbling amid rising prices of planting inputs and food items.
For the past six years, the agriculture secretaries—piñol and Dar—have been lobbying for a higher agricultural budget to the tune of P200 billion and above, to provide cheaper and accessible food to Filipinos. But as the curtains fell on the Duterte administration, the DA was not able to taste even a budget of at least P100 billion.
Diseases, diseases
IN what pundits described as a perfect storm, the agriculture sector, particularly livestock and poultry raisers, saw themselves pushed to a tight corner as the country grappled for the first time with various transboundary animal diseases.
In 2017, it was bird flu. In 2019, it was African swine fever. Today, it is both. Tempering pork and chicken prices—and even bringing them back to prepandemic levels—would mean Marcos successfully eradicating these two animal diseases and encouraging hog and chicken raisers to produce more again.
Livestock and poultry industry players have been holding back on their production due to lingering threats of diseases. Worse, they are now taking further steps back due to the high cost of animal feed products and fuel prices due to the ongoing Ukraine-russia war.
Pundits earlier identified that the government must pour investments in the hog sector to revitalize it and regain its former glory in five years’ time. But on top of this, local producers have been firm that the government’s “pro-importation” stance must change to provide them a policy environment that encourages domestic output.
Fertilizer, fuel
CROP producers, meanwhile, are battered by unabated increases in fertilizer and fuel prices, forcing them to reduce planting input application, therefore resulting in lower yield, which is threatening the overall food supply of the country.
Fertilizer prices have breached the P3,000-per-50-kilogram level while fuel prices inch closer day by day to P100-per-liter level.
Some agricultural producers, such as bananas, are left with no choice but to bite the bullet to keep the same level of quality and yield in order to satisfy customers’ demands both locally and abroad.
Experts, including the outgoing agriculture chief, have declared that it is now imperative for the government to promote the use of organic and biological planting inputs to reduce dependency on imported synthetic and inorganic fertilizer.
Recently, President Marcos said he was exploring governmentto-government negotiations with several countries in order to ensure a stable supply of more affordable fertilizers.
Promises and aspirations
THE President’s assumption of the DA was initially shadowed by his campaign promise of P20 per kilogram of rice. This immediately became the parable of town, before he retracted it as a mere “aspiration” for the Philippines.
Industry experts and officials scrambled in justifying Marcos’s goal of reducing the price of rice to such a steep level, which was last seen by Filipino consumers in 2006.
But since announcing his takeover of the agriculture department, Marcos has gone beyond his promise of dirt-cheap rice.
“There are many priorities that we have to attend to simultaneously, first of all we will try to increase production as we come to the planting period, the harvest period after the rainy season, during, before and after the rainy season. Hopefully, we can counteract some of the increases in prices,” he said.
And part of Marcos’s priorities is bringing back the previous status quo to agencies that were created during his father’s time.
“As I have mentioned many times before, many of the agencies have changed their functions over the years and maybe it’s time to return them. I talked about the organizations like the NFA [National Food Authority], the FTI [Food Terminal Inc.] and the Kadiwa, which we already have started to see especially at the local level but we have to structure the actual department so as to be more responsive to the global situation now when it comes to food supply,” he said.
As the government enters a new chapter, only time will tell if Marcos’s decision to be the first President serving as the concurrent agriculture secretary would be a bane or a boon to Filipino farmers and fishermen. And whether his courage in taking on the challenge will boost his credentials as a President who came to power with an “avalanche” of votes and used that mandate for an equally formidable crisis.