Modernizing agriculture

The Manila Overseas Press Club Agriculture Forum with Department of Agriculture Secretary Francis Tiu Laurel on Sept. 17 at Fairmont Makati was a huge success, with an overflow audience of businessmen, diplomats and senior journalists.

Tiu Laurel, a self-made deep-sea fishing billionaire, painted a bright future for Philippine agriculture, despite calamities (18 cyclones in 2023 alone) that decimated food production His DA team, the chief said, works tirelessly “foregoing some weekends and holidays, just to fulfill spoken and unspoken promises of improving our beloved industry.” His report, as edited:

In 2023, rice production reached 20.06 million metric tons, a 1.53 percent increase from the previous year’s 19.76 million MT. Yellow corn production grew 4.6 percent, from 6.09 million metric tons in 2022 to 6.37 million tons, notable considering the calamities.

DA’s National Rice Program (NRP) and National Corn Program (NCP) seek even higher production. Rice and corn farmers are being empowered with rice and corn seeds, organic and inorganic fertilizers, bio-pesticides and financial and technical assistance, among others. The DA is equally committed to increasing the production of high-value crops, livestock and poultry, and the fisheries subsector, along with the development of organic agriculture, urban and peri-urban agriculture and our Halal food industry. We only have three and a half years to do what we need to do.

Livestock and poultry production grew 3.0 percent and 4.0 percent in 2023. Fishing and aquaculture declined. The DA’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources is positioning its full resources to increase fish production. High-quality planting materials, small and large ruminants and fingerlings, among others, are embedded in the menu of interventions for increased food production.

Partner countries are being tapped for official development assistance (ODA) financing “to address critical sectoral and institutional challenges and investment gaps.”

Major ODA projects include: One, build better more farm-to-market (FMR) roads and bridges with French funding. FMR roads link agriculture and fisheries production sites, coastal landing points and post-harvest facilities to the market.

Two, a World Bank-financed program for results (P4R) to support and help leverage the incremental funding to accelerate DA implementation and scale up impacts of activities. The WB’s P4R is one of the three WB financing instruments that rely on the government’s own systems and procedures and not on the bank’s procedure. P4R focuses on results that deliver sustainable results and build institutions, and to expand the impact of interventions through a program approach.

To modernize agriculture, DA and NIA are working on various irrigation system projects, especially small-scale irrigation, to quickly supply adequate irrigation water and boost harvest.

DA is lobbying with its partners to fund 8,000 solar-powered irrigation projects, in addition to DA’s own ongoing small-scale irrigation projects. We lack irrigation compared to our neighboring countries like Vietnam and Thailand, whose farms are 85-90 percent irrigated. Less than 50 percent of our farm lands are irrigated. Irrigation is really key.

We will build more cold storages across the country to address overproduction storage concerns and minimize post-harvest losses for vegetables and high value crops. Again, we have 40 percent loss without cold storage.

DA wants to set up “food trains,” a transport system from hubs and terminals directly to consumer markets. This will streamline logistics and connect farms to consumers; eventually, cut the traders off and lower the price for consumers while increasing income for our farmers.

I want additional chiller warehouses for high value crops, especially in Taguig, we are in the works for creating a bigger chiller cold storage for completion by next year. In addition, we will be building food terminals along with cold storage facilities which will also be strategically established regionally. These facilities are very crucial to address the food logistical cold chain issues.

We have launched “Agri Puhunan at Pantawid” with our Planters Products Inc. and our friends from DBP, a credit facility that offers low-interest loans to help farmers meet their financial needs. The loans will be made accessible through DBP or the Land Bank of the Philippines, for farmers to sustain and expand their operations. The program includes crop insurance, a better insurance system, to make farming bankable.

African swine fever (ASF) continues to affect the livestock industry. As of Aug. 21, 2024, active cases have been recorded in 15 regions across the country. We take this threat seriously and are actively implementing preventive measures to curb its spread. On Aug. 30, we rolled out 10,000 doses of emergency ASF vaccines in Lobo, Batangas, and by October this year, roll out another 150,000 nationwide.

To concretize the President’s vision to transform and modernize agriculture and fisheries, we formulated a comprehensive four-year plan, “Para sa Masaganang Bagong Pilipinas,” to boost agricultural production, ensure consumer access to affordable food and ultimately achieve food security for the Filipino people. (End of speech)

During the open forum, Secretary Tiu Laurel said he needs P1 trillion to modernize agriculture. I told him Land Bank has over P1 trillion of idle deposits, more than enough to cover modernization cost or at least irrigate half of farm lands that are unirrigated.

Insanely liquid, with P3.3 trillion in assets, Land Bank has more than P2.95 trillion in deposits. Only about P1.146 trillion of that has been lent out, leaving a colossal P1.8 trillion idle or unused. That fortune if deployed to agriculture – Land Bank’s original mission was finance small farmers and fishers – can help solve the current rice crisis and food shortage.

Solving the food crisis will lead to economic and political stability which in turn leads to a sweep by the administration coalition of nearly all the elective positions in the 2025 and 2028 elections. In one blow, you achieve both ultimate inclusion (food for the poor) and national unity.

How about it, Land Bank?

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