Focus transforms agriculture rhetoric into reality

It is the focus given by the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) top management that transforms the rhetoric of noble intentions to the reality of concrete plans and actual results. This we have seen in recent months.

In 2016, frustrated by the poor performance of agriculture with average annual growth of 1.5 percent compared to industry’s 6.5 percent in the past six years, Alyansa Agrikultura (AA) united with four other coalitions to form Agribusiness Alliance (AFA). AA represented small farmers and fisherfolk, while the others represented agribusiness, science and academe, rural women and multisectors. The coalitions selected six priority areas for the DA to address immediately.

These were: road maps and management systems; private sector participation; agriculture extension; credit and insurance; international trade; and structural reform in coconut, water and agriculture consolidation.

On July 29, in an AFA meeting with President Duterte, as represented by Agriculture Secretary William Dar, nine initiatives for urgent action were identified in the context of these six priorities. Below is the status of these initiatives:

1. Importation. We must use legal trade remedies to ensure a level playing field, especially for rice and poultry. For hogs, comprehensive inspection and testing must be done to prevent the further spread of the African swine fever (ASF). Secretary Dar has taken action on this. In addition, the Department of Trade and Industry resources such as their attaches and deep expertise must be harnessed to supplement the DA efforts.

2. Rural women. A separate unit has been created to increase their empowerment in areas like fisheries and animal production, where their participation is only 15 percent and 32 percent, respectively. Programs are now being implemented to correct this imbalance.

3. Exports. The missing private sector trade expertise is now being provided. There are new product-specific strategies for market access to countries like Korea and Taiwan.

4. Antismuggling. Though this is still problematic (e.g. less than 4 percent of the confirmed P1.4 billion rice smuggling loss in 2019 has been recovered), there is now a DA-supported program for the private sector to have the Bureau of Customs access to nonclassified information and inspection.

5. Fisheries. Imported fish not following trade laws like labeling are identified and banned from wet markets, the main income source for municipal fishers. Secretary Dar has installed a required Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) for commercial ships. This will prevent them from catching fish in municipal waters reserved for small fishers. Postharvest and processing facilities are critically needed here, as in other sectors such as rice, corn, poultry and livestock

6. Tariffs. The restoration of higher rates for products in exchange for the rice liberalization postponement is being discussed. The Tariff Commission will consider the new situation caused by the pandemic.

7. National information network. This legally mandated body is finally being set up after 24 years. It digitizes information and collects the long-missing agriculture-related data needed for both government and private sector planning and decision-making.

8. DA budget. This budget has to be increased and allocated much more effectively. An example is that poultry and livestock, which produce 30 percent of agriculture output, is getting only 3 percent of the DA budget.

9. Coconut levy. While release is imminent, there is still no credible road map and plan to guide the effective distribution of the funds to the farmer beneficiaries. In addition, farmers should be part of the decision-making body.

Recently, focus has been getting concrete results. AFA commended Dar’s creation of a Provincial Agriculture and Fisheries Extension System (Pafes), done with local government units. But only one province has started this. On Dec. 4, Dar directed Pafes implementation nationwide through one focal province per region as a model for other provinces. Since several commercial ships illegally encroaching on our municipal waters are depriving small fishers of their catch and depleting our scarce fish supply, Dar instituted the VMS. This way, commercial ship movements will be electronically monitored and penalized for illegal activity. When certain critical priorities were not sufficiently addressed, Dar created a powerful committee with three critical undersecretaries to solve this problem.

The DA can now address the two most important but inadequately addressed two issues today. The first is governance. There will now be road maps with action plans agreed upon by both the DA and the private sector, as well as a management system with transparency and accountability. The second is importation. There will be the proper import policy with trade remedies utilized, as well as the inspection, testing and antismuggling activities necessary to have a level playing field.

Given this focus, the rhetoric of good governance and enlightened importation policy can now become the reality of results that our agriculture needs badly today. INQ