Agriculture must get a significant boost in the next 11 months to prepare the ground for continuing inclusive growth in the next administration.
President Aquino gave one of his most impressive speeches in his last State of the Nation Address (Sona) on July 27. Even the most skeptical will concede that P-Noy, with the documented facts and figures he presented, did an outstanding job for our people.
However, an area for potential improvement that should get more focus is agriculture. The table below compares the growth of the agriculture sector vis-a-vis the industrial sector in the Arroyo and Aquino administrations.
Growth Rate (%)
Agriculture Industry
2004 -2010 (Arroyo) 2.8 % 5.2 %
2010-2014 (Aquino) 2.1 % 6.5 %
Note that the 2.1% agriculture growth during the first year of President Aquino’s term is only half of the 4.0% target.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) bureaucracy failed to support Secretary Proceso Alcala’s call for significant agriculture development and increasing farmer and fisherfolk incomes.
We suggest three initiatives that should be carried out in the next 11 months to better achieve inclusive growth.
Roadmaps. The government think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) collects and reviews sector roadmaps for the country. Twenty-nine have been submitted since October 2012, but not one on agriculture has ever been received.
While the industry sector had its subsectors guided by these roadmaps that the government and the private sector implemented in a united way, agriculture did not have this advantage. This may be one of the reasons why industry has grown much faster than agriculture.
In addition, industry improved more during the Aquino administration because it was guided by these roadmaps.
It should be noted that in 2014, the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) budget was less than P5 billion, while DA’s budget was more than P70 billion.
We must start the formulation and implementation of agriculture roadmaps. These will help ensure the focused use of the DA budget as well as motivate joint private-public action to achieve unique necessary developments in each agriculture subsector.
With these roadmaps completed in the next 11 months, the next administration will have a general blueprint to follow.
Implementation. Even if good roadmaps are formulated, poor implementation will make them ineffective.
The DA has not responded adequately to Alcala’s advocacy for true agriculture development and increasing farmer and fisherfolk incomes. There is a missing management system that will ensure systematic follow-ups, disciplined monitoring and evaluations, and corrective actions.
In 1988, I teamed-up with Trade Secretary Jose Concepcion and Product Standards Director Renato Navarette to introduce the ISO 9000 management system in the Philippines. Potential exporters who could not sell their products saw their businesses improve once they adopted this system.
Today, while all DTI Regional Offices have ISO 9000, none of their DA counterparts have it.
Program implementation is therefore considered more effective in DTI than in DA. In the next 11 months, the DA should have a concerted effort in putting into place an extensive and effective management system like ISO 9000 so that the next administration can effectively implement plans.
Smuggling. The estimated smuggling rate for both agriculture and industry steadily increased from 6 percent in 2005 to 35 percent in 2013. Thankfully, this decreased to approximately 30 percent last year. This is partly because of new Bureau of Customs management and support from the public-private sector-led National Competitiveness Council’s Anti-Smuggling Committee.
For more than one and a half years, the departments of Finance, Justice, and Trade and Industry assigned official representatives to this committee. Recommendations were thus systematically carried out by these departments. On the other hand, the DA only appointed a representative last month. In effect, the anti-smuggling efforts of the DA suffered.
The DA should make up for lost time by giving top priority to fighting smuggling and providing full support to its newly-appointed member in the committee.
In the next 11 months, swift and decisive action should be taken in creating agriculture roadmaps, implementing effective management systems like ISO 9000, and ensuring anti-smuggling action.
We can then see more inclusive growth and a better foundation for the next administration’s "Tuwid na Daan.”
(The author is chair of Agriwatch, former Secretary for Presidential Flagship Programs and Projects, and former Undersecretary for Agriculture, Trade and Industry. For inquiries and suggestions, email agriwatch_phil@yahoo.com or telefax (02) 8522112).
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Agriculture boost needed in the next 11 months
