MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is looking to launch this year a grounded and transparent supply-demand database to aid the agency in policy making and planning in the sector.
DA Undersecretary for policy, planning, and regulations Mercedita Sombilla said her office is creating a dashboard containing demand and supply projections that will be made accessible to the public.
She said the demand and supply dashboard would guide the DA in making decisions.
“I think what we really need is a transparent, well-grounded data and information that would convince stakeholders that what DA is really doing is not really just because we want it done but because it is all based on what is happening,” Sombilla said.
The development of the project was initiated by the DA last year in response to President Marcos’ call for an assessment of the supply and demand dynamics of agricultural commodities.
“When I first started there about a year ago and the President was asking for supply and demand situation of the commodities, I could not get any from the policy, planning and regulations office department. The worse is that each of the operating units will give me different data of different periods. I told myself this is a disaster,” Sombilla said.
“Now, I made a memorandum instructing all operating units for information data that they collect on their respective crops or commodities to be cleared in my office. It is now my office that has to produce the official demand and supply projections,” she said.
The DA office is eyeing to roll out this database in the next quarter. It is working with the Korean government to gather all the necessary information related to agriculture that will be used in decision-making and for data analytics, the undersecretary said.
“I’m hoping by the third quarter I will have already an operating dashboard for supply and demand, for prices, and inputs for the public,” Sombilla said.
She pointed out that the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) had experienced delays in reporting data, making it unsuitable for the agency to use as projections for planning purposes.
“If you notice, the statistics agency usually has delayed reporting. Now, at DA, we have the advantage of having our regional offices that can estimate what is already on the ground,” Sombilla said.
By utilizing its regional offices, the DA can get initial information on the areas planted and expected yields that will allow it to make estimates for the succeeding period, especially in instances when natural calamities strike a certain area.
“…we will already more or less know how much is going to be destroyed, how much is not going to be harvested and how much additional imports we should be getting,” Sombilla said.