MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines needs to mechanize its farms and make sure crops get to consumers to keep food costs down, presidential aspirant Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. said as he called for the creation of more farmers' cooperatives and more government support to keep food costs down.
Speaking at a pre-recorded interview aired over DZRJ, Marcos said that the labor cost for growing and harvesting rice in the Philippines is double that of Thailand and Vietnam.
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He said that most farmers in the Philippines have small plots of land of around one hectare and that "you cannot mechanize at a large scale [with such small plots]."
He said that farmers' cooperatives would allow more efficient mechanization. "You organize them so you are able to mechanize so that you can use the big tractors, the big harvesters, the big machines that bring efficiency to what you are doing."
Farm mechanization and farmers' coops
The Department of Agriculture's Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund includes a component where the government distributes 1,200 to 1,600 pieces of farm machinery a year to rice farmer cooperatives, according to a DA briefer on the program.
The DA distributes tractors, threshers, irrigation pumps and other farm equipment, with mechanization seen to lower the cost of production of rice by P2-P3 per kilogram and reduce post-harvest losses by 3%-5%.
The government has also been encouraging the organization of farmers' associations and cooperatives for technical and financial assistance and for the implementation of projects like reforestation.
Marcos said the government has neglected to provide post-harvest support, adding "the big milling operations are all private, they should be government."
He said post-harvest assistance could be extended to cooperatives. "Sila na lang magpatakbo niyan, so that the value added will not go to the private, mapupunta sa magsasaka mismo."
(The cooperatives can run the mills so that the value added will not go to private owners but to the farmers themselves.)
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Post-harvest, Marcos said, government can transport the produce to food depots and to government-run stores that sell basic commodities. He said that since government will not need to profit from the sales, prices could be kept lower.
"We had that system for a while, but after '86, it was not replaced by anything else," he said, referring to the year that the Marcos dictatorship was toppled by the People Power revolution.
Marcos, who has been campaigning on a platform of unity, has also often referred to projects that his father and namesake put in place. His pitch in his 2016 vice-presidential run, and in his current campaign for the presidency is for a return of what his supporters and his father's loyalists have referred to as "golden years" in the Philippines.
The country’s agriculture sector fell by 1.7% in 2021, mainly driven by declines in the livestock sector. According to Philippine Statistics Authority data, the value of production in local agriculture inched up to P495.5 billion in the last quarter of 2021 rom P492.8 billion in the same period in 2020.
However, the total value of production in local agriculture for 2021 dropped to P1.76 trillion from P1.79 trillion.
Marcos referenced the current practice of importating galunggong (round scad) to shore up supply, and said it was unbelievable given the archipelagic nature of the Philippines.
"The system has been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that we have to import basic commodities," the former senator, whose campaign tagline is "babangon muli (we will rise again), said.
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