Not enough for a struggling sector
THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is getting a budget of P60.6 billion next year, an amount insufficient to finance the sluggish agriculture and fisheries sector in the country, said Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol.
Speaking to mango growers and processors during the Central and Eastern Visayas Mango Summit yesterday at the JCentre Mall in Mandaue City, the DA chief expressed his disappointment over the amount.
“That is less than two percent of the national budget. That is unfair,” he said.
Previously, Piñol requested P220.5 billion. The 2018 budget of P60.6 billion is 18.4 percent higher than its approved budget of P51.2 billion this year.
The official said the country needs more farm-to-market roads (FMR). Under the 2018 budget, the DA gets P6 billion for farm-to-market roads, which will pave the way for 600 kilometers FMR. However, Piñol said the country has a 13,000-kilometer backlog to fill.
“The President (Rodrigo Duterte) has committed that he will complete the farm to market road network within his term, that is his commitment,” Piñol said.
He added that the agency wants to invest in modern agriculture technology. One of DA's implemented projects is the first national color coded agriculture guide map that will guide the farmers on what to plant, based on the soil profitability and weather conditions. This can be viewed in the DA website.
For the first half of the year, the agriculture sector posted a 5.28-percent growth, up from a decline of four percent during the same period last year.
The Philippine Mango Growers Association, meanwhile, said the national production has dropped from an average of over one million metric tons annually to only 400,000 MT in 2016.
The biggest challenge confronting the industry, according to dried mango producer Justin Uy, is the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program that discourages corporate growers. It calls for the redistribution of land to small farmers and landless agricultural workers, which he said, resulted in low productivity of land.