Farmers hope next administration will reduce food imports

MANILA, Philippines — A farmers’ group hopes the next administration will cut the country’s dependence on agricultural imports to boost  food self-sufficiency and address hunger.

In a statement over the weekend, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) challenged opposition presidential aspirants to address the worsening of food import dependency under the Duterte administration.

“Public servants, especially at the national level, must address the most basic need of Filipinos: food. Yet, most presidentiables remain silent on food self-sufficiency. The next president needs to reverse Duterte’s legacy of worse food importation and hunger,” KMP national chairperson Danilo Ramos said.

Among the policies implemented under the current administration that support importation include the Rice Tariffication Law in 2019, which removed the quantitative restrictions and most government controls on rice imports.

In addition, rice tariffs were further lowered to 35 percent for all countries in May this year with the issuance of Executive Order (EO) 135, in a bid to diversify sources amid rising global prices.

“Instead of recalibrating and aggressively supporting local food production, neoliberal economic managers doubled down on failed policies during the pandemic and pushed for more and more imports,” Ramos said.

Aside from rice, EO 133 was also issued this year, which increased the minimum access volume (MAV) for pork meat to 254,210 metric tons (MT) for MAV year 2021 from 54,210 MT.

KMP also cited the 60,000 MT of imported fish supply, which was approved by the Department of Agriculture (DA)  to augment supply during the closed fishing season.

The group cited data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) that shows that the country’s import dependency ratio for food registered at 24.9 percent in 2020. This is higher than the 21.56 percent registered in 2015 before the Duterte administration took office.

“Increasing food importation paves the way for increased food smuggling. All these lead to more income losses for farmers, leading to less food production and worse hunger for every Filipino. Food self-sufficiency is in the interest of the whole nation and 2022 aspirants must dedicate more attention to it,” Ramos said.

The farmers group cited data from the Social Weather Station (SWS) survey which placed the country’s average hunger rate in 2020 at 21.1 percent.

Agriculture Group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) called for a sustainable and more localized food production to make sure that more food is grown where it is needed.

“Future generations will only thrive if protection and support are given to the producers of our agriculture and food systems, there is no other way around,”SINAG chairman Rosendo So said.

The agriculture group stressed that trade and the quest for international market access in agricultural commodities would only be positive when a country can sufficiently produce its own food and export its surplus production.