LA TRINIDAD, Benguet —President Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr., bent on pursuing agricultural industrialization, one among his administration’s priorities, recently announced he will hold the Department of Agriculture) DA) portfolio to spur it as engine of growth particularly in the Philippine countryside, a trickledown effect undoubtedly favoring the complex highland agricultural system existing in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).
CAR is a microcosm of defined agricultural region upon which the Philippines rely on, in its major supply for highland vegetables, regularly ensuring 80 per cent of domestic needs.
Marcos, during his run to the seat of the presidency, had always espoused to move for an agricultural-led industrialization pathway.
Extrapolating from past trends and taking into account emerging conditions in the Philippine countryside and outside of the nation, President Marcos wants to expedite transformation to promote long-term productivity growth and facilitate upgrading of farms and agro-enterprises.
President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos will be the country’s first president ever to be concurrent agriculture secretary, to tackle what he deemed, “as practical matter so things will move quickly.”
In the case of highland agriculture, it had been struck at the backbone by series of vegetable smuggling that left farmers reeling from the effect, their products left unsold due to influx of smuggled vegetables sold at cheaper price in the market.
Contraband vegetables negatively impacts highland agriculture and the Philippines as a whole, resulting to loss of government revenue from customs duties and taxes, distortion in prices of locally produced vegetables resulting to farmers’ losses, slowdown in food production and entry of pests.
Vegetable smuggling by cartels has a serious negative impact on CAR’s agriculture industry as major producer of highland vegetables. For example, on carrot production alone, smuggling has caused farmers to lose over 2.5 million pesos daily. And that is only about carrots.
Former agriculture secretary Manny Pinol bluntly said earlier Marcos taking over agriculture is a “master stroke. Nanginginig na ang cartel at hindi kayang i-harass ang budget ng DA by the same people who run it – legislators.”
Marcos, in taking over DA, said, “I think the problem is too severe enough that I have decided to take on the portfolio… as of now, and at least until we can reorganize the DA.”
In tandem with the stand of Marcos, Philippine business executives also hold a parallel view that the Philippine agricultural sector is vital within the context of overall economic transformation.
Bolstering their stand, Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) key officials presented to Marcos last week a “wish list” which encapsulated, among others, the need “to transform agriculture into a dynamic, high growth sector, and espouse poverty reduction and inclusive growth.”
Gigi Gamboa Simbulan, PCCI-North Luzon area vice-chair, explained the need for the incoming administration to labor doubly in effort to help farmers and fisher-folk attain competitiveness by widening their business opportunities from production, processing and selling in the marketing chain system.
Simbulan holds the hope that Marcos will calibrate programs intended to aid those in the farming sector or those engaged in food production for them to become competent entrepreneurs.
“Let us not underestimate our farmers. We have to harness the entrepreneurial spirit of our farmers and fishers with proper training which primarily includes entrepreneurship. Our farmers and fishers can be in a better class. We can even make agriculture a status symbol.”
“We are primarily agricultural. Government must help our farmers, fishers and members of the agriculture industry to attain greater competiveness. This is through increasing productivity and lowering production cost, as well as advancing science and technology. We need to really make agriculture shine, “Simbulan said the PCCI forum held last week.
According to the Agricultural Indicators System (AIS) maintained by the Philippine statistics Authority (PSA), there are 9.70 million persons nationwide, engaged in the agricultural sector, as of 2019.
According to a PSA-CAR data, there stand 218.3 thousand household members in CAR directly engaged in agricultural activities. Of the number, 71 per cent or 105.5 thousand were employed in their respective landholdings.
On the other hand, 22.8 per cent or 49.9 thousand were employed both in their own landholdings and in the landholdings of other farmer folks (a dual function), while 6.1 per cent or 13.3 thousand persons strictly worked in the landholdings of others.
While 45, 000 males dominate the CAR agricultural operation scene, female household members that numbered at 129.9 thousand were actually the ones engaged in tedious agricultural activities.
Should the aspiration of Marcos bear fruit, CAR agricultural experts believed it will turn around CAR’s agricultural growth which the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA-CAR) noted as having contracted in 2015 by 4.1 per cent, tightening to 0.3 per cent in 2014.
For such contraction, “ the agriculture sector’s inflation-adjusted gross value added of Php 12.658 billion accounted for 9.5 per cent of the region’s economic output in 2015,” according to CAR’s Regional Development Plan, 2017-2022.
“This share is a reduction from the 10.3 per cent of the previous year. The trend continues with the sector contributing an average 9-11 per cent of the regional output from 2013-2015 even as it employs about half of the regions labor force,” CAR’s Regional Development Plan noted.
With Marcos at the helm of DA, agricultural experts and observers in Cordillera are very confident the problem of vegetable smuggling which severely affects highland vegetables will completely be halted.
PCCI executives who toe the gospel of agriculture with “evangelical zeal” believe in the compelling move of President Marcos in the economic potential of Philippine agriculture in the rural sector.
A reassessment of the role of agriculture in development seems to be required, as emphasized by President Marcos.
It is obvious that for agriculture to be successful, the person who will be chosen incoming DA secretary must hold similar conviction, if not even “over the hill zeal” of the President, according to political observers.
But a lot of skeptics, even after the election has receded in the background still continue to harp, “Does agriculture really matter?”
Given that agriculture remains a large employer in many regions particularly in North Luzon, Central Luzon and Mindanao, discussion on its structural transformation cannot be neglected. Philippine agricultural transformation will likely proceed according to past trends, although the pace and direction of change will be punctuated by emerging challenges and opportunities such as, but not limited to, market instability, future technologies and environmental stress like climate change which Marcos always emphasized during his campaign.
And what is economic growth in relation to agriculture, these same skeptics ask. There are several factors taken into consideration.
First, accumulation of Physical (equipment, structures, and machines) and human capital (education and training embodied in the labor force) are explanatory factors for economic growth. These, however, are only part of the variations, according to experts from NEDA-CAR, DA-CAR and the Benguet State University (BSU)
Professor Silvestre Aben, former BSU vice-president and now enjoying retirement from sterling government service explained technological and institutional factors influence the rate of accumulation of capital and therefore, these are more fundamental explanations of growth.
Second, besides capital accumulation, Total Factor Productivity (TFP) comes as an important element in explaining economic growth, like improving input quality labor through education, technological innovation, organization of production and distribution are important determinants in economic growth related to agriculture.
Last, but not least, Aben explained political institutions, like the Office of the President, must never be discounted on the importance of economic growth, being instrumental in leading the way and shepherding other government institutions to economic development. Institutions, like the DA, therefore, play a prime role in economic growth in agriculture, Aben explained.
Experts, like Clarita Carlos, taken by Marcos National Security Adviser, Manny Pinol, and Rodolfo Agner, former municipal agriculturist in Bambang, Nueva Viscaya, and Aben hope agriculture can be looked as a “status symbol” for the country with Marcos steering the wheel.