DA plots long-term plans to boost agricultural-fisheries sector

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s agricultural sector has long suffered from underfunding, leaving local farmers and fisherfolk vulnerable to the effects of climate shocks, rising input costs and volatile markets.

The past decades have seen agriculture receiving only a fraction of the national budget and little investments from the private sector causing a lack in appropriate support to the country’s impoverished farmers despite the sector’s central role in producing food and sustaining rural livelihoods.

The Department of Agriculture (DA), led by Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., has during the start of his appointment in 2024 laid out plans to improve the country’s food security.

Tiu Laurel had said that these projects were aimed at increasing farm productivity, which could lower the prices of food and grow the income of farmers and fisherfolk.

Among them is the development of market farm infrastructure such as post-harvest and cold storage facilities and farm-to-market roads to lower the logistics costs for local producers and avoid further post-harvest losses.

He said expanding cold storage and post-harvest facilities would help farmers reduce post-harvest losses and ensure their crops remain fresh.

“It is a foundation for transforming the agricultural landscape, minimizing post-harvest losses, increasing incomes for farmers and fisherfolk and delivering safe, high-quality food to Filipino families,” Tiu Laurel said.

The DA chief also stressed that expanding farm-to-market roads (FMR) remains crucial to supporting the country’s agri-food systems and improving the lives of farmers and fisherfolk.

“Wherever I go, farmers and even fisherfolk request FMRs. This is important especially because of the fuel crisis we are facing, roads are crucial for bringing down logistics costs,” Tiu Laurel said

However, plans for further expansion of rural roads have been stalled since last year due to a massive corruption scandal involving the public works department. The DA has since taken over the implementation of FMR projects and would begin construction of stalled projects by August 2026.

To support its massive agricultural infrastructure plans, the DA has also made it a priority to unlock better financing from the private sector and international lending partners.

The agency is also seeking to tap the private sector funding through public-private partnerships (PPPs) to fast-track the construction of critical farm infrastructure projects, following a meeting with the PPP Center last June 30.

The agency is looking to fund more FMRs, mega food hubs, agriculture and fisheries ports, hatchery centers, agricultural mechanization and biosafety facilities, cold storage facilities, solar-powered ice plants and irrigation systems.

Agriculture Undersecretary for Agro-Marine Industrial Systems Arrey Perez said that collaboration between the government and private sector remains crucial to hasten project planning and implementation.

It could take about a century to complete the government’s major infrastructure items for agriculture without proper funding or proper private sector investment, according to the DA’s Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Engineering.

About P33.25 billion worth of PPP projects are under development, while about P4.7 billion worth of projects are under implementation, according to the PPP Center.

“Partnership is the key to delivering these projects faster. By working closely with the PPP Center and private investors, we can build the infrastructure our farmers need and make agriculture a stronger engine of economic growth,” Perez added.

Aside from private sector partners, the DA has also secured $1 billion in funding from the World Bank under the Philippine Sustainable Agriculture Transformation (PSAT) Program, which seeks to improve farm production, promote crop diversification, reduce post-harvest losses and boost climate resilience.

The release of funding under the PSAT Program will be based on indicators such as increasing rice output, efficiency and climate resilience in value chains and improvement in the agency’s overall performance.

To complement this, the World Bank had also launched the $24.5 million Technical Assistance for Sustainable Agriculture Transformation grant that will support sustainable agriculture initiatives.

Aside from infrastructure plans and international funding to increase productivity, the agency is also banking on the country’s high-value crops to boost the income of farmers and capitalize on the growing demand for tropical produce.

The agency has been intensifying its efforts to tap new export markets for the Philippines’ farm products. This is seen to boost farmers’ earnings and create better employment opportunities across the agricultural value chain.

The DA chief said that expanding market access will allow the country’s farmers to secure better prices for their products, increase their incomes and open new opportunities to drive growth to rural communities.

The Bureau of Plant Industry, the plant import and export arm of the DA, has been facilitating the expansion of market access for Filipino agricultural products.

Among the countries being eyed for the expansion of Philippine farm exports are Australia, Uzbekistan, Egypt and Jordan, among others, for locally produced durian, mango and banana.

The country recently logged record-high farm exports reaching $1.03 billion in April, a 33.2-percent increase from $772.68 million in the same month last year, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.

Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc. president Danilo Fausto told The STAR that the government should bolster its research and development and biosecurity measures to support the country’s livestock and crops sector.

He noted that stronger action must be taken to implement safeguard measures against imports “to provide a level playing field among international trade partners to allow fair competition.”

Fausto also stressed that domestic policies on local production and trade should be harmonized to ease doing business.

Foundation for Economic Freedom president Calixto Chikiamco pushed for the DA to prioritize policies that would promote farm consolidation and lifting the land retention limits on owning agricultural land.

“Land fragmentation is the biggest cause of poor agricultural outputs,” he told The STAR.

He added that the government must also reorient the budget away from rice production toward higher value crops.

However, Chikiamco argued that the “DA is ineffective and inefficient in fulfilling its mandate of increasing farm productivity and making food more affordable to millions of Filipinos.”

He stressed that the agency has been repeating the same programs “which have failed in the past,” focusing on subsidies and government handouts.