Agriculture

After more than a year and after several other names cropped up in the business grapevine, at last we finally have an agriculture secretary.

Newly appointed Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. will be racing against time because of the enormity of the work that needs to be done – from ensuring food security to addressing specific problems of our local industries.

This early, there are already some hiccups – expected of course – including the fact that he did not graduate from the University of Santo Tomas despite official documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), saying so. (Congratulations to campus journalists from The Varsitarian for putting the spotlight on this).

Hiccups aside, I hope he will be able to improve a sector that was once upon a time, our country’s pride, hope and source of economic growth.

It’s a challenging task for sure and one must be a bit crazy to accept the agriculture post especially in these hard times. But then again, sometimes the crazy are the ones who get things done. We’ll see about that.

My hope is that he would be open to huge changes in the present structure of the Department of Agriculture and work closely with people on the ground – the farmers, the fisherfolk, the local government units.

As I said before, the present structure of the agriculture department is from the top down wherein plans and programs emanate from the top with hardly any consultation from those on the ground and implemented in a one-size-fits all manner. This isn’t always effective because different regions have different problems.

Sec. Laurel can change this by working closely with the different LGUs because they are the ones who are in touch with the farmers. The farmers know and listen to the LGUs’ provincial agriculture and municipal officers, as former agriculture undersecretary Dr. Cristino “Resty” Collado pointed out.

This could help a lot in determining how to allocate food production budget, say the rice production budget, for example. Those in the top 10 rice producing regions should be prioritized while top performers can be rewarded with a higher budget from the DA.

Rice

In the food hierarchy, three major commodities must be tackled properly – rice, meat and sugar, as I said before.

Rice is top in the hierarchy, the mainstay in every Filipino meal.

Sec. Laurel would have to create an effective partnership with farmers to boost rice productivity. This, in turn, can be done with the DA and the different LGUs working together.

For example, the local chieftains can distribute seeds and fertilizer directly to the target. They can identify which areas need to be prioritized the most.

Pork, chicken

Next in the food hierarchy is pork. Whether we like it or not, healthy or otherwise, we are such a meat eating country.

Welcome to this lechon republic!

Indeed, meat products, mainly pork and chicken, are the usual food items that most Filipinos complement with rice.

Also, the price of pork is the lead barometer used to plan for family food budgets. Prices of poultry and fish follow when prices of pork go up.

Speaking of meat, we are also having problems with cheap imports.

Industry sources have said that a lot of meat products have been kept in cold storage facilities for months on end.

Normally, this is allowed but in recent months, there have been numerous reports of some of these meat products stored far too long and no longer fit for consumption yet are finding their way into stores and wet markets in the country without any information on their expiry or production dates.

The least the government can do is to make sure that every product sold to consumers is properly labeled.

Raids by the DA months ago and industry monitoring from local producers have shown that tubs and tubs of unbranded and spoiled chicken products are sold in some wet markets such as those in Bulacan and Caloocan.

There are even reports that a cold storage operator in northern Luzon buys imported meat products – some of which may be expired – and sells these goods to food kiosks selling chickens, dumplings, etc. This is a horror story, if true.

The DA must be vigilant and must look into these reports that’s been going around the industry.

Data from the Bureau of Animal Industry showed that the country bought 289.52 million kilograms of chicken overseas in the first eight months of the year, 35.4 percent higher compared to the 244.8 million a year ago.

Not surprisingly, our local meat producers are hurting.

Sugar

And then there’s the bitter situation surrounding our sugar industry, which is now on the brink of extinction due to neglect and our obsession with imports.

Importing goods of course is always the more convenient route because these goods are cheaper.

But there’s always the issue of smuggling and poor quality of imported food, especially meat products.

The different problems surrounding our top commodities point to a common solution and that is to increase local production. This is of course easier said than done and may not be the fastest solution.

But for the sake of our farmers, producers and for our own food security, we must do it.

How we get there under Sec. Laurel’s leadership remains to be seen. Would he be able to strike that delicate balance between ensuring affordable food prices and strengthening local production?

I hope we find out soon enough.

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen (Iris Gonzales) on Facebook.