DA to lobby for higher 2025 budget

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is set to appeal the decision of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to reject the agency’s proposed P513 billion for next year.

Agriculture officials disclosed yesterday that the budget being sought by the department for 2025 was not approved by the DBM.

The indicative budget of the DA for next year is roughly around the same level of its funding this year which is about P208 billion. If there would be an increase in the DA’s budget next year then it would be less than P10 billion, the officials noted.

Agriculture Undersecretary Asis Perez said the DA is set to discuss the possibility of increasing its tentative 2025 budget with the DBM before President Marcos submits the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to the House of Representatives next month.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa said the department is already ready to appeal to lawmakers to increase its budget once the deliberations begin in August.

The higher funding being sought by the DA is imperative to play catch-up with what Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. pointed out as a 27-year investment backlog in the farm sector.

For one, the DA is trying to fast-track the construction of critical infrastructure in the sector such as farm-to-market roads (FMRs) and irrigation systems.

According to De Mesa, it would take “100 years” to complete all the irrigation and FMRs requirements of the country.

In irrigation alone, a P1.2-trillion investment requirement is needed to provide formal irrigation systems to some 1.2 million hectares of farms nationwide, according to the DA.

It added that there is a need for the government to construct some 64,000 kilometers of FMRs nationwide to complete the country’s 131,000 kilometers of FMR requirement.

At the end of 2023, the government completed 67,000 kilometers of FMR, based on the country’s FMR roadmap.

“The DA cannot do it alone in meeting that huge investment requirement. If the private sector will come in then definitely it will shorten the period to complete (the FMRs and irrigation systems),” De Mesa told reporters yesterday.

Perez said the public sector’s investment is less than five percent of the value of country’s total agriculture and fisheries output.