Food on the table

There are many urgent reasons why agriculture has to be a major priority of the next administration. Most of our people are in it and are poor. We cannot hope to deal with our poverty problem without addressing agricultural concerns.

To be a farmer is to be consigned to poverty. At least, that seems to be true with most of our farmers. No wonder the average age of our farmers today is said to be around 57. Their children would rather take their chances in the slums of Metro Manila.

Food on the table is also a hot urban issue. We are not competitive for foreign investments in job creating industries because our labor cost is high. And our labor cost is high because our food cost is high… higher than in Thailand or Vietnam.

Through the years, various administrations and politicians have said a thing or two about helping our farmers and boosting our agricultural productivity. A few laws have been passed, including one that is supposed to modernize our agricultural sector. But positive results are meager.

In the current presidential campaign, we hear of candidates saying the exact same things said before. But no one is bold enough to talk about doing what ought to be done.

 Indeed, no one is really talking about how to help make our agricultural sector more competitive in the light of ASEAN trade liberalization. Worse, politicians talk of even more protectionism.

When an efficient Thai livestock and poultry operator sought and got incentives to partner with locals, the Board of Investments was criticized severely. The Thais could have helped locals improve productivity and be more price-competitive before ASEAN integration. Now the Thais can just come in and we better be ready to compete with them.

Then there is NFA and its import monopoly. We took the easy way out and asked to be exempted from opening our market a few more years. Yet, there is doubt we will be any more competitive at the end of the requested period.

Kiko Pangilinan did what he could to reduce the debt of NFA, now said to be larger than the budget for national defense. NFA’s monopoly to import rice should have been scrapped because it benefits only a few well connected persons, in and out of government. The fact there is still rampant smuggling of rice shows the economics of our rice policies is wrong.

Then there is this cartel in garlic and onions which was busted by a DOJ anti-cartel task force led by Justice Asec Geronimo Sy.  The DOJ findings revealed the close relationship between bureaucrats and cartel operators. The consumers and the farmers are still being victimized by these cartels.

Given all these glaring problems, the presidential candidates should have said a thing or two about how they will approach agriculture. I heard Duterte say something general about putting an emphasis on agriculture.

Duterte hinted money is being wasted big time by the Department of Agriculture and he wants to produce more visible results for every peso spent. That’s true. Scams abound at DA. Remember the fertilizer scam and other scams utilizing pork barrel funds?

But even Duterte doesn’t have a big picture view of the problems. He promised specific solutions to some problems in a program he calls “Back to the Basics.” Here are some of the things he wants to do:

– Identify which regions or provinces of the country would be suitable in the production of the needed food items. This would entail a nationwide study to produce an agriculture guide map which would indicate soil suitability, climatic conditions and rainfall patterns so that farmers would know what to plant.

I wonder if this isn’t something that’s already there because if not, those bureaucrats at DA must have been sleeping on their jobs big time.

– Irrigation services must be considered a vital government obligation to support the growth of the Philippine economy, just like the network of roads being used for free. The country’s rice farmers should be supported by providing them free irrigation water and should be allowed to manage their own irrigation systems for themselves without being obliged to pay for the irrigation fees.

This is nothing new, but not implemented well in the field.

– Food terminals complete with cold storage facilities will be established in key production areas to serve as the delivery point for the farmers’ produce. From there, the food items will be distributed to other areas where these are needed in a concept called “Food Positioning.”

The last time I heard this sort of plan was from former Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap. But despite the strong support he enjoyed with former PGMA, he got nowhere close to realizing this. Duterte address the bottlenecks.

– Basic infrastructures to facilitate the transport of food and agricultural products from the key production areas to the market will be given priority by a Duterte presidency.

We have heard this before and it only produced very rich politicians and favored contractors of badly built “farm-to-pocket” roads.

– Farmers in areas which cannot grow food products will be supported by a Duterte presidency by introducing crops suited to the area with the needed technical and funding support.

Another “no-brainer” but makes us wonder why past presidents failed to make this happen significantly enough.

It is unfortunate that Duterte, whose value is his bias for action, doesn’t seem to have a big picture strategy of how to address the agricultural sector. I asked UAP agri-business Prof Rolando Dy about agriculture as an election issue and he said the new president must be able to address the following:

–  How will he promote private investments in the countryside which is sorely lacking since Cory Aquino?

– What is his plan for NFA as a professional logistics agency, earning money, not losing lots of money?

– How will he diversify Philippine agriculture and fishery... a laggard in ASEAN in exports?

– Who executes the programs? All government (NG and LGUs)?

– How will the high rural poverty (two out of five rural folks are poor) be addressed by these programs?

– What is his criteria for appointing DA/DENR/DAR/DTI/DOST/DILG secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and directors who will execute these programs?

Having secretaries with good management background is good, but a general will not win the war. He needs colonels, major and captains to execute plans.  Execution is a serious Filipino weakness.

–Who will monitor the performance of the departments following their committed key result areas? And their impact on farmers income and rural poverty?

One other big problem no candidate wants to tackle is how to make agrarian reform really benefit farmers and our food production objectives. We just keep on banging our heads against a solid wall of agrarian reform failure through the years.

The problem with Duterte, as one economist advising him said, is his failure to internalize the issues. But at least he is headed in the right direction.

The economist, a retired ADB official and UP professor, is concerned about Duterte’s lack of focus on economic issues and sharpness in framing inequality and poverty as key parts of his platform.

It isn’t just Duterte. All the presidential candidates are in the same hole. They have to convince us they have what it takes to ensure there will always be food on our table. We don’t have good choices right now and I’m doubtful we will have a good choice by May.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.