Agriculture needs to grow

By: John Carlo Tria

The facts about agriculture have stared us in the face for far too long.

Philippine agriculture grew at an average of only 1.1 percent for the past 10 years. This, despite an overall gross domestic product growth (GDP) of 6.2 percent. What these numbers show is that this vital sector’s growth has remained flat and almost at the same level as our population growth rate.

That said, while we are happy that our agriculture growth recovered a bit in the last quarter from its dismal performance at the beginning of the year, it matters more that we fix the long term issues that has been causing its failure to grow at a rate that can ensure food supply for the public and in a manner that allows sustained livelihoods for farmers.

To discuss agriculture and seek solutions to its problems, we, therefore, will need to understand not only the topline growth numbers but more importantly, the inner workings or structures that create these numbers, or prevent real growth.

In short, it’s not enough to know how low the growth is. We’d like to know why the growth is low.

For one, we are not naturally endowed with one landmass that allows low-cost transport between provinces like it is in Thailand and Vietnam.

Being an archipelago means shipping and trucking, or double handling the commodity, paying more in the process. This, by itself, is a challenge that adds cost to the retail price of rice.

Another problem is the lack of credit for farmers to allow them to finance their crop-growing activities.

This forces them to accept onerous payment terms from loan sharks, thereby leaving them with reduced after the produce is procured.

Still even worse is the lack of necessary skills to ensure greater productivity. Our rice farming methods are 19th century techniques combined with modern chemical fertilizers. This makes the farmer dependent on the fertilizers even more.

Then there is climate change that can upend even the most experienced farmer armed with indigenous knowledge.

Thus, a revolution is needed for the rice sector to produce the abundant harvests that our people need. It will require better, more sustainable methods using less expensive inputs.

This goes for many other commodities. It’s time to revolutionize agriculture, to wake that sleeping giant that ought to grow higher and faster than it does today to occupy a larger place in our country’s growth.

Agriculture needs to grow in order for us to grow.