Land use, crop yield

At the heart of the heated debate on land conversion between senators Raffy Tulfo and Cynthia Villar is the issue of food security as impacted negatively by farmlands allegedly being converted into residential, industrial, or commercial enclaves. Amid the verbal fireworks between a neophyte lawmaker seen to be trying to create buzz for a purported run for higher office and a veteran politician from a family whose wealth has been anchored on real estate development, the issue is nothing new.

Likewise, land conversion is not an exclusive concern for Filipinos as the diminishing share of agricultural lands is a problem that most countries across the world are confronting, especially in Asia. Researchers Ping Chew and Marc Soccio, in a Raboresearch-hosted economic report on Agricultural Perspectives in the Asia-Pacific, have pointed out that “Asia’s position in the global food market tilts heavily towards demand due to its huge population and limited agricultural resources.”

They drew attention to their finding that while Asia hosts more than half of the global population, it only has a fifth of the world’s arable lands. The less-than-ideal share of agriculture vis-a-vis other land utilizations has traditionally been compounded by lower yields compared to other regions, they said. The study also cited rapidly “depleting resources like water, deteriorating soil quality, inadequate logistics, and inefficient farming practices and land usage.”

Those benefiting from land conversion would surely point out that increasing crop yield is more important than increasing the total land area allocated for farming. Data may support this position as, according to the same Raboresearch study, world agriculture production nearly doubled over the last 50 years although farmland share of total land areas across geographical borders increased only by 32 percent.

“The implication clearly is that expansion of arable land area has played a less important part in increasing output than crop intensification and yield enhancement. However, these trends are not uniform across the regions,” Chew and Soccio posited.

“In ensuring food security, there should be no conflict between increasing crop yield and increasing the share of agriculture from total land areas.

“Those benefiting from land conversion would point out that increasing crop yield is more important than increasing land allocated for farming.

“For instance, Asia only marginally increased its share of world area harvested but increased its share of world agriculture output from 34 percent in 1963 to 47 percent in 2013. Thus, most of the production growth in land-scarce regions of Asia is due to yield gains and crop intensification. Within Asia, East Asia, where output has tripled with a mere 11 percent increase in area harvested is at the forefront of this trend.”

In ensuring food security, however, there should be no conflict between increasing crop yield per hectare and increasing the share of agriculture from total land areas.

They are not one-over-the-other targets but should complement one another if countries like the Philippines would have the capability to feed their people without resorting to importation.

The Philippine Statistics Authority’s 2012 Census of Agriculture reported 5.56 million farms or holdings covering 7.19 million hectares, translating to an average of 1.29 hectares per farm holdings. “The number of farms increased from 1980 to 2012 by 62.6 percent as the average area of farms/holdings decreased from 2.84 hectares per holding in 1980 to 1.29 per hectare per holding in 2012,” it said.

The increase in farms, as cited by the PSA, is largely irrelevant because they merely resulted from partitioning to smaller hectarage — from 2.84 hectares per unit to 1.29 hectares per farm. What we want to see, of course, is a substantial increase in the total land area utilized for agricultural activities.

It’s always entertaining to see lawmakers trade barbs, especially when television cameras are rolling. However, just so we are all on the same page in understanding where we stand as a country in terms of food security, it is high time we come up with newer census and studies on land use.

We want to see not only whether land conversions are eating up arable lands, but also where across the country’s many regions can we establish more state-supported farming enterprises to increase farm output both through increased yield and increased percentage of land allocated for agriculture.