A visit earlier this week to Aurora province was another reminder to me of the agricultural potential of this country. While the sun was beating down in Metro Manila, lush Aurora was enjoying steady rainfall. Parts of the province reminded me of home, not least the impressive natural forest covering the Sierra Madre mountain range.
Last year, growth in the Philippine agriculture sector was measured at little over 1%, which is well short of the impressive growth recorded for the economy as a whole. Agriculture accounts for around 12% of Philippine GDP and half of the national population lives in rural areas. If truly inclusive growth is to be achieved, then agriculture has to succeed and commercial agriculture needs to be part of the solution.
I had been invited to Aurora province by Dr. Eusebio Angara, the president of the Aurora State College of Technology, to give this year’s commencement address and I was pleased to see agriculture, forestry, fisheries and environmental sciences among the courses on offer. My challenge to the graduates was to apply their skills to harness the province’s natural attributes and improve the lives of their families and communities.
This is a sector that is close to New Zealand hearts. The journey of the sailing ship Dunedin from New Zealand to Britain in 1882, equipped with refrigeration technology, and carrying a first supply of frozen meat, paved the way for the trade in frozen meat and dairy products that was to become the cornerstone of New Zealand’s 20th-century economy. In fact, today New Zealand is unusual as a developed economy, for agriculture is the number one industry.
Farming in New Zealand is intimately connected with business. Today, we produce ten times as much food as we consume. New Zealand farmers, food producers, and food processors understand that what they produce must meet the highest demands of consumers in all four corners of the world, including the Philippines, for which food and beverage products make up more than 80% of our total merchandise exports.
New Zealand has more or less the same land mass as the Philippines and, although it may have a much smaller population than the Philippines, my travels through this country have shown me abundant natural resources — land, water and forests — with potential to unleash higher growth rates in rural areas. Whether that is in rice, coconuts, tropical fruits, meat production, or even dairy farming — a sector that New Zealand is actively supporting in the Philippines – then making agriculture work as a business is like any other business. Creating the conditions in which private capital can be deployed in agricultural investment is a critical part of the puzzle, so too the development of infrastructure and an integrated supply chain. And, also, respect for the environment: not leaving it untouched but treating it sustainably, whether farming, fisheries or even commercial forestry, a key export industry for New Zealand.
It is predicted by the United Nations FAO that world food production will need to double by 2050 to meet growing demand. The farming and food industries in New Zealand, the Philippines, and elsewhere have a common interest in seizing the opportunity that this represents and, in so doing, generating economic growth in rural areas.
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(Reuben Levermore is the Ambassador of New Zealand.)