MANILA, Philippines — Filipino farmers affected by imports, especially coffee and poultry producers, are expected to get at least a billion peso worth of support this year after the Department of Agriculture (DA) received an exponential increase in its earmarked fund meant to enhance farmers’ competitiveness.
The DA got a substantial boost in its two earmarked funds aimed at protecting local farmers from the ill effects of imports as well as enhancing their competitiveness under the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
The DA’s remedies fund and competitiveness enhancement measures fund (CEMF), both bankrolled by the government’s special safeguard duty collections, saw triple-digit rate hike this year.
The department’s allocation for the remedies fund almost quadrupled to P38.569 million this year from last year’s P10 million. The remedies fund is used by the government to implement trade remedies such as safeguard measures to protect domestic industries and producers that have been harmed by increased imports.
Meanwhile, the CEMF allocation this year quintupled to P1.25 billion from P250 million. The CEMF is used to implement programs that would improve the competitiveness of various agri-fishery industries that have been affected by increased imports.
The remedies fund and the CEMF were twin funds created under the Republic Act 8800 or the Safeguard Measures Act that seek to protect domestic industries, including agricultural quarters, from the injuries brought about by increased imports due to trade liberalization.
The remedies fund has been part of the DA’s budget for the past decades but the CEMF was only included in the department’s budget for the first time last year, more than two decades after RA 8800 was enacted into law in 2000.
Various agriculture stakeholders pointed out that it is about time that the government “puts into good use” the funds that have been “idled” for many years in national coffers. Agriculture industry stakeholders estimate that the bulk of the CEMF came from poultry and coffee imports.
“The CEMF fund is long overdue to be included in the GAA... [it has] deprived the coffee and poultry industries of the safeguards against import competition,” Philippine Chamber for Agriculture and Food Inc. president Danilo Fausto told The STAR.
“We hope to see this year the grant of the CEMF to the coffee and poultry stakeholders to help the development of these industries,” Fausto added.
Raul Montemayor of the Federation of Free Farmers proposed that a portion of the remedies fund be used by the DA in establishing a sound data system that would generate and analyze pertinent trade figures.