UNDP notes growing dependence on food imports by poor nations

Agriculture-based economies of developing countries like the Philippines are becoming increasingly dependent on food imports as most cannot compete with developed countries in the global agricultural market.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) noted in its 2006 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report that developing countries’ food imports are expected to reach $50 billion by 2030.

The UNDP said that in the Asia-Pacific region, only Vietnam and Thailand are considered "natural exporters" while the rest like the Philippines will have to plod their way to be competitive in the global agricultural trade.

Philippine agriculture, which makes up a fifth of the country’s gross domestic output, suffers from continued neglect and policy biases.

With the investment climate so biased against agriculture, especially for smallholders, agriculture growth has been declining, bogged down by low productivity, expensive production inputs and further weakened by a deluge of cheap and highly-subsidized imported agricultural products.

While Philippine agriculture grew significantly in the 1970s, it’s been downhill since the 1980s. The growth of agricultural output measured in terms of gross value added or GVA slowed down from 3.9 percent during the 1970s to about 1.4 percent annually in the 1990s and had declined consistently vis-à-vis the country’s population growth.

Farm productivity has languished. The Philippines has one of the lowest average growth rates in GVA in Asia. The weaker growth of agricultural exports compared to its Asian neighbors indicates the country is fast losing its competitive edge in world agricultural trade.

UNDP said while developing countries need to revive domestic production to protect livelihoods of the poor, small farmers are being displaced by the entry of cheap imported agricultural produce.

"Agriculture, the bedrock for the poor, has been neglected and must be given new prominence because Asia-Pacific has become a major importer under free trade," the report said.

Cheap imports as a result of opening up to agricultural trade have led to a sharp decline in domestic production of food staples in the region.

Instead, the promise of quick profits is encouraging richer farmers and agribusiness interests to move out of food production toward the cultivation of more profitable commercial crops.

Hafiz A. Pasha, United Nations assistant secretary-general and regional director of UNDP’s bureau for Asia and the Pacific, expressed alarm over the growing food import bill of developing countries.

"Gains for agriculture and fisheries represent the heart of economic and human development transformation for Asia-Pacific, given that the sector supports the vast majority of the region’s poor. If, as a result of trade expansion, small-scale farmers are out-competed by imports but do not have access to an alternative source of livelihood, human development as a whole will suffer."

Pasha noted that trade expansion can damage poor farmers‚ interests by causing sharp declines in prices, increases in the cost of inputs such as fertilizers, withdrawal of state services for irrigation or farm-to-market roads, or land consolidation, among others.