Back in 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte committed a bigger budget for the Department of Agriculture (DA) to improve local food production and fund various agricultural projects: farm mechanization including post harvest facilities, completion of the 3,500-kilometer farm to market road network, and the establishment of big and small irrigation projects, to name a few. With this, the administration claimed that Philippine agriculture would reach its full potential soon.
But when is “soon” exactly?
It wasn’t in 2018 when the country imported 1.9 million metric tons of rice. Or in 2019 when we imported approximately three million metric tons. And it surely isn’t in 2020 as we are still expected to become the world’s biggest rice importer by the end of year—with China, a country with a significantly larger population than the Philippines, coming in second.
Three years later and a rice tariffication law in place, food sufficiency still seems hard to reach. Although rice prices went down, farmers lost billions worth of revenue. And most of them still belong to the country’s poorest sector—the most vulnerable to hunger. The law that the administration claimed as a “pro-poor” policy doesn’t seem to benefit poor farmers at all.
Why import rice when the country has over four million hectares of farmland? According to Kapisanan ng Magsasaka, Mangingisda at Manggagawa ng Pilipinas group chairman Sonny Domingo, local farmers aren’t competitive enough. But how can they be globally competitive when they aren’t given the bare minimum? Domingo revealed that instead of giving farmers capital to build their own agri corporations or large-scale farming businesses, they are only given tractors and fertilizers. Instead of earning, they incur huge debts just so they can keep producing. They can’t even access their farm credit. And instead of directly buying their produce, we import.
Although importing products has its advantages, excessive importation can negatively affect our economy in the long run. According to one study, the country’s income may reduce as an increased value of imported products may discourage our exports and distort trade balance. But investing in our local farmers and other agricultural workers would contribute a lot to the nation’s inclusive growth and sustainability as they are our most essential producers.
Look at it like this: People need food to survive. Local farmers produce our food. Our farmers are literally keeping us alive, so the least we can do is support them. If they give up on us, food insecurity and hunger epidemic could soon strike the country.
By investing in our farmers, we are also investing in the long-term success of the country.
Header photo courtesy of Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay
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Writer: KLEO CATIENZA
