Gov’t, private sector must get together on agriculture

IN the coming months and years, national development efforts will be leaning heavily on infrastructure construction. The administration has already begun its “Build, Build, Build” program of roads and bridges, airports and seaports, schools and other public buildings. And the bulk of Chinese aid in loans and grants will be for projects starting with two new bridges across the Pasig River.

The construction will provide work for thousands of Filipinos, including many now returning home after many fruitful years of work abroad. After the completion of the projects, these will boost the national economic development efforts in manufacturing, in trade, in tourism and other services.

We would complete the picture of national development if we could also see a similar boost in the development of Philippine agriculture, particularly in the production of our staple food rice, so that we can stop importing hundreds of thousands of kilos every year from Thailand and Vietnam. We have just been through a rice shortage crisis with rice prices zooming up a few months ago, boosted by the new tariff on fuel. The massive “unimpeded” rice importation ordered by the administration stopped the zooming prices.

Agriculture accounts for 27 percent of total employment in the country, with 11 million Filipinos directly working on the land. But there has been “almost stagnant output” from the agriculture sector, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said sometime ago, to which Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol replied: “You cannot squeeze milk from a thin and hungry cow,” citing the slashing of the department’s budget by about billion from billion in 2016 to a proposed billion in 2019.

In a forum last week, the Philippine Chamber of Food and Agriculture, Inc. (PCFAI) led by President Danilo Fausto called on the nation’s banks to see the situation as a business opportunity and create agribanking departments with loan officers knowledgeable in the dynamics of agriculture. Currently, only 2.4 percent of their loans go to agriculture, compared to 19.92 percent to real estate and 17.5 percent to consumers.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Chuchi Fonacier, who spoke at the same forum, said Philippine agriculture – farmers, fisherfolk, and agribusiness – needs funding of at least billion. Members of the PCFAI see the need at trillion.

If the government and the private sector can get together on this, it would be a major boost to Philippine agriculture. Government can provide incentives, opportunities, and a conducive climate, but it only do so much. The private sector must step in with actual programs and projects and funding, so that agriculture can take its proper place of importance in the Philippine economy.