The national government’s spending for agriculture is skewed heavily toward the rice sector, according to a study released by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS). In a presentation at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, PIDS senior fellow Roehlano Briones said the government’s rice spending reached P37.44 billion in 2012, almost half of the government’s total agriculture spending for that year. Data showed that the government spent a total of P62.64 billion for agriculture-related programs and projects. This was significantly higher than the P14.38 billion spent in 2005. Data also revealed that government spending for other crops like corn only amounted to P951 million in 2012; high value crops, P1.63 billion; coconut, P2.08 billion; livestock, P2.72 billion; and 3.308 billion for fisheries. “The DA and its attached agencies have in recent years experienced a dramatic increase in public funding, growing by fourfold over the past seven years [or in 2005 to 2012],” Briones said in the study, titled “Impact Assessment of the Agricultural Production Support Services of the DA on the Income of Poor Farmers/Fisherfolk: Review of the vidence.”“Spending on rice had already dwarfed the other major commodities even in 2005; the allocation increased over time, rising to 11 percent of rice output [by value] in 2010. Spending on corn and coconut also rose over time, but very erratically, compared to the steep and sustained ascent of public funding for rice,” he added.
Government agriculture budget biased toward rice, says PIDS study
