The Philippines current food production (Part 2)

Products exported in EU countries include animal or vegetable fats and oils and their cleavage products; prepared edible fats; animal or vegetable waxes, USD 297.12 million; preparations of meat, of fish or of crustaceans, molluscs, and other aquatic invertebrates, USD 60.87 million; and preparations of vegetables, fruit, nuts or other parts of plants, USD 43.70 million.

In other development, for imports under ASEAN member countries, Vietnam accumulated the highest value with USD 420.38 million or 26.9 percent to the total USD 1.56 billion agricultural imports from ASEAN member countries in the second quarter of 2022.

Next to Vietnam is Indonesia with USD 391. 21 million; Malaysia, USD 370.05 million; Thailand, USD 215. 02 million; Singapore, USD 135.83 million; and other ASEAN countries having USD 30.22 million. Still under imports, Spain is leading in the EU member countries with import value of USD 114.82 million or a share of 24.8 percent to the total USD 462.57 million agricultural imports from EU member countries.

Products imported include meat and edible meat offal, USD 182.31 million; dairy produce; birds’ eggs; natural honey; edible products of animal origin, not elsewhere classified, USD 88.70 million; and residues and waste from the food industries; prepared animal fodder, USD 45.54 million.

How can we resolve the

rice importation issue? Currently, the country remains the most food-insecure country in Asia. The reason for that is that we relied more on imported food to feed the growing population.

With no clear policy or plan to improve the agriculture sector, the Philippines will be forever dependent on imports unless the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., will implement a drastic move that will benefit the country’s 111 million population.

For export matters, the Philippines has no problem. Big chunk of proceeds from exports is helping the country’s economy that was crippled by the pandemic. On a short term basis, to address the gaps in the shortage of food like rice for example, importation is the top easiest solution the central government can do to resolve the problem.

With 20 tropical storms hitting the country annually, some of which are devastating, Filipino farmers were always affected and that resulted in severe loss in the agricultural products. For example in 2020, typhoons that hit the country destroyed around 419, 560 MT of rice, as reported by the Department of Agriculture.

For a medium-term solution, the state should ensure enough funding intended for the agriculture sector. But this measure will only work yearly and need to renew the financial requirements for succeeding years.in the past 25 years, with domestic food shortages, the country imports 10% of its rice yearly, making the nation the world’s largest rice importer.

However, the problem of food shortage that has been going on for decades, for example rice, can be resolved if the central government will aggressively take part in the food production system.the issue here is not the rice variety present in the market but the kind of current platform the government implements.

What the Philippine government needs is an enterprise system because admittedly, cooperative is not efficiently working although it should be the ideal.

For several years, the central government, like the Agriculture department, has been allotting a huge amount of their yearly budget to provide seedlings, fertilizers and farm equipment to its farmer groups across the nation. And this kind of measure has not contributed to increasing the production of farmers. At the end of the day, we resort to importation.

So to get rid of relying on food importation and possibly to regain its crown as the leading rice producer in Asia, the Philippine government should start by organizing the farmers.

Specifically, holding discussions with farmers who have more than 10-25 hectares of land to organize themselves and to merge with other farmers to reach 500 hectares in a certain location. This kind of setup is similar to big agribusiness.

Once they complete the 500 or 1000 hectares, the state should provide state of the art equipment, including silos as well as people that will help the farmers in their group.

Of course, this kind of undertaking will be handled by the farmers themselves. They will elect their own members of the board to handle the decision making. The government, on the other hand, will not touch the issue of the land tenure system. Only the production process, as well providing monetary for experts that will help in the operation.

In other words, what the central government must do is to control the production itself. None of the future harvest will be sold outside except to the government. And the state’s involvement for this kind of plan will only be three years. After three years, the government will exit and let the leaders of the farmers group handle all the operations. The experts and workers helping them from scratch in the operation will remain. The farmers themselves will take care of the compensation.

For me, having such a system for agricultural crops will dramatically increase the country’s production. This is what other countries were doing until now. Like Vietnam and Thailand. The good thing with Vietnam and Thailand, they have a strong presence of their government in food production.

In general, that plan is intended for the farmers themselves. The government will allow them to control the production but not abruptly. That’s why there’s a three-years to five years exit plan for the government. Once the government sees the good development, they can turnover the operation with the farmers. Having 20 groups operational scattered all over the country will solve the rice importation issues.

That will be for medium and long term plans. Unless the government takes action, we cannot do away with importation.another action the government can do is to strengthen its crackdown against corrupt government officials in the Bureau of Custom.

Under President Marcos Jr. ‘s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, the smuggling of rice, poultry and other agricultural products were rampant. Farmers group called Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) cited that country lost about 300 million kilograms of rice to smugglers in 2020 alone.worst, under Duterte who also claimed he is against corrupt government officials, not a single smuggler or government official linked in the illegal activity has been put to jail.

The central government should also look into this issue.