Agricultural malaise needs urgent action

If the Philippines really believes in fighting poverty and boosting initiatives for inclusive growth to embrace those who are poor and in the rural areas, it must come up with a clear workable strategy to improve its agricultural competitiveness.

While the country’s current growth is being spurred forward by the services and manufacturing sectors, the percentage of the population that benefits from these is only about a fourth.

Thus, the remaining three-fourths of the population – composed largely of fishermen and farmers – are not able to create enough revenues to escape poverty. This also is a clear threat to food security, which is a basic right of a nation.

But how do you really solve this longstanding riddle called agricultural competitiveness? So many measures have been introduced dating back to decades past, and so many resources and billions of pesos have been spent trying to boost the sector’s productivity.

Yet, agriculture continues to be in sick bay, like a patient whose health is steadily deteriorating and with no medicines that seem to work. It’s not going to be a surprise if the sector goes to the hospital’s intensive care unit one of these days.

Priority measures

Bringing wealth to the poorest sectors of society, admittedly, is a major challenge, and the biggest hurdle to this is the lack of quality education and knowledge that prevents the flow of capital access and much-needed technology upgrades.

The problem is not insurmountable, though, if there is a firm resolve by the government to come up with the necessary reforms. It is critical for the current and succeeding administrations to categorically declare that the agricultural sector will be the priority over the short- and medium-term.

Learning from past mistakes, forming a truly representative and no-nonsense multi-sectoral task force – something like the Constitutional Convention – may perhaps be a good idea to review the past and present state of Philippine agriculture with the end goal of coming up with a comprehensive but workable roadmap.

It’s a good thing that many of the country’s major conglomerates are seriously investing in agriculture, although they may need to be encouraged to look at sourcing their goods from local farmers and fishermen instead of importations.

Among the key issues that need to be tackled are the country’s agricultural trade commitments to the World Trade Organization and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and when we can really fully declare that we’re ready to compete.

Once a realistic timeframe is agreed on, our government needs to ensure that there will be more than adequate funding to support the roadmap. This will mean putting an agriculture czar who is above reproach and who knows what he is doing.

Cleaning up

A thorough audit of the Agricultural Competitive Enhance Fund would be timely, after this had been extended twice but with no significant results to show. In fact, an earlier survey had led to the ACEF’s temporary suspension in 2011 when it became clear that funds failed to reach its target beneficiaries.

There are other funds – all in the name of boosting the country’s agricultural competitiveness – which need to be reviewed. Sad to say, the Department of Agriculture and its relevant agencies have become known as hotbeds of corruption.

As in many similar agencies battling this malady, the answer lies in improving the transparency of transactions at the DA, as well as utilizing Information Technology tools not just to record dealings, but also establish real-time information access and dissemination of data and trade results.

Ground level empowerment

Among the operational concerns that need to be looked into would be the strengthening of farmers and farmer groups under close supervision by local government units.

The DA has become too bureaucratic and detached from the farmers and fishermen that it has failed to recognize problems before they become too difficult to solve.

On the other hand, the Local Government Code has been successful in taking care of many of the national government’s inadequacies. In fact, many local governments are now examples of real democracy at work.

One key area that could benefit much from empowering farmers would be the transfer of responsibilities of communal irrigation systems to local farmers. Currently, the National Irrigation Authority is foot-dragging on this initiative, preventing farmers from taking over the management of their local irrigation systems.

This has led to irrigation channels being neglected because the NIA has become remiss in providing funding for repairs and upgrades. If directly managed by the farmers, chances are that these canals and pumping stations would be maintained far better.

Private sector involvement

The last, and perhaps one of the most important measures in introducing reforms in the agriculture sector, would be the role of the private sector. This is not just about asking them to invest in the land or infrastructure, but also in the delivery of services and the development of forward and backward linkages between producers, traders, processors and exporters.

Many of the services that the DA currently delivers can be transferred to the private sector. This may mean higher costs since many of the services that the DA gives are subsidized, but this will be far more efficient for the farmers and fishermen who will receive timely and relevant services.

Even technical training for farmers and fishermen funded by international organizations and agencies can be directly contracted out to the private sector. Let the DA focus instead on enhancing safety and other regulatory functions.

This country has given the government too long a time already to solve this impasse to modernizing our agricultural sector. It’s time that our nation’s leaders start to think differently, perhaps even radically, of ways that would reform our agriculture sector – before it is too late.

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