RISING FOOD PRICES HIGHLIGHT
IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE
By Manny Piñol
You cannot squeeze milk from a thin and hungry cow!
Several months ago, I was asked by members of Congress to react to the statement made by Economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia who downplayed the role of agriculture in the country’s economic growth.
I politely refused to comment by saying that it would not look good for members of the official family to express their disagreements in public.
In a recent meeting with Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the economic managers again restated the position that agriculture and rice production are not among the priorities of government.
I knew it but I never complained even when the budget of the Department of Agriculture was slashed by about P15-B from P64-B in 2016 to the proposed P49-B in 2019.
Recently, however, as inflation hit 5.7% and the economic growth slowed from 6.7% to a still remarkable 6%, all eyes were focused on agriculture blaming it for the “lackluster” growth of 0.2% in the first two quarters of 2018.
The increase in the price of rice was also blamed as the biggest contributor to inflation.
Now that Sec. Pernia is blaming agriculture for the slowdown in the economic growth I believe I have to respond publicly too so that people will understand the real story and agriculture would not be made a whipping boy.
Indeed, agriculture’s 0.2% growth in the first two quarters was not what we wanted to achieve because we were projecting a 1% growth for the first two quarters over the 6% registered last year.
But such is the reality in agriculture where projections could be affected by factors like climatic changes.
The 2017 growth in the first two quarters was a very high 6% because agriculture was rebounding from a negative -1.4% performance of the previous administration.
In 2017, the rice sector recorded its historic high harvest of 19.28-million metric tons, up from 17.6-MMT in 2016. Corn production reached sufficiency level for the first time; Livestock with hardly any support from government posted positive growth; Poultry rebounded from the Bird Flu crisis and also posted positive growth; while the High Value Crops Sector also performed decently.
The only negative performance was in Fisheries which is undergoing a massive overhaul with an intensified campaign against illegal fishing, including the destructive Hulbot-Hulbot, which resulted in less catch.
The fisheries prospects are positive though as shown in the Zamboanga Peninsula where after illegal fishing was effectively eliminated and a 3-month Closed Fishing Season was implemented, the catch has increased and the big fish like Tuna and Tanguige are starting to come back.
The 0.2% growth shows that agriculture, without added intervention from government and with the reduction of its budget, is levelling off and will remain that way unless the reforms are made.
What are these?
1. The BUILD, BUILD, BUILD program of government should be extended to the arterial and farm to market roads leading to the food production areas.
While government has poured hundreds of billions of pesos widening the highways and destroying still usable highways to re-pave these with concrete, the farm-to-market road program has received a pittance – P9.5-B – good only for 900-kilometers.
The current backlog in the Farm to Market Road Program is 13,000 kilometers and at the rate we are building FMRs it will take us about 12 years before we will complete the network.
To emphasize how the absence of FMRs affects the price of food, Presidential Asst. for the Visayas Michael Diño yesterday told me that a sack of camote produced in the upland villages of Cebu is sold in the market for P2,000.
But the farmer who planted it only earns P300. The price went up hundredfolds because the camote has to be carried on the back of a kargador and hauled by a jeep to the market.
2. Review of the cash dole-out programs of government like the 4Ps and the P200 coupon for the poor is a must.
Recent developments show that while P75-B has been allocated for the 4Ps program this year and another P120-B for 2019, this hardly cushioned the effect of inflation on the poorest of the poor.
I am not an economist but I have always contended that this money is better spent for programs which would assist the poorest of poor become productive rather than give this out expecting such intangible and unquantifiable results as increased attendance in schools of poor children and more visit to the clinics by mothers.
Let me make this clear: I am not proposing the abolition of 4Ps, rather a review of the program where instead of cash dole-outs, this would be given in the form of livelihood assistance especially in food production where the barometer of success would be the reduction in poverty incidence.
The key word is Pump-Priming rather than pouring water down a pipe, as in helping the poor build water pumps rather than quenching their thirst by rationing water.
To put it in plain and simple language: Gamitin natin ang P120-B para makatulong sa mga mahihirap at maparami ang pagkain sa bansa.
3. Erase the bias against Rice Production.
I have repeatedly been asked why Rice Production is the Number 1 Banner Program of the DA.
My answer is straightforward and simple: Because it is what Filipinos eat.
Should Filipinos decide to accept the Cardava Banana as their staple food, then the DA will shift its Banner Program to producing more bananas.
Can we produce enough rice?
Yes but we have to put in place the needed infrastructure which were neglected in the past.
We need for more to irrigate the 2.7-million hectares of rainfed rice areas out of the total 3.9-million because by doing that we will double the production in those areas.
That would be more than enough to feed this country, theoritically.
I am happy that in the last Cabinet meeting, President Rody Duterte, after hearing my arguments about focusing on smaller and faster-to-build small irrigation systems, committed to provide P44-B for the Solar-Powered Irrigation Systems Project of the DA which aims to provide water to an additional 500,000 hectares over the remaining four years of his administration.
4. Resetting of the mindset of our economic managers.
The Philippines, no matter what they say, is still and will always be an agricultural country where the lifeblood of the economy is agricultural production.
The positive economic numbers derived from the jobs generated by the Build, Build, Build Program and other infrastructure programs are temporary.
When all of the hammering and the bulldozing is done, we will all go back to the very basic question: what will pass through these wide highways? What will be shipped out of these ports and airports? What will propel our economy?
The answer is very clear: Agriculture.
Abandon agriculture and years from now, we will suffer the same fate as that South American country where food riots are now taking place because at the time their revenues from oil were overflowing, they abandoned agriculture.
I am happy that recent developments, where the economic managers are pointing at the lackluster performance of agriculture and the inflationary effect of the price of rice as the causes of the slowdown in economic growth, are providing me with the best arguments that agriculture must be given its fair share of attention and, of course, budget.
Indeed, when God closes doors, He opens windows.
Support and Fund Agriculture so that it could produce more as in, Feed the Hungry and Thin Cow so that it could produce more milk.
(Photo of the thin cow was downloaded from a public website.)
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