Funds allocated by the national government to the agriculture sector must be released without delay to boost food production and increase the income of farmers, Sen. Francis Escudero said on Tuesday.
Escudero, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, noted that the country’s food-import bill is now at P300 billion a year and that 36 percent of Filipino families consider themselves as “food poor.”
“Two heads are better than one, or make that two carabaos pulling one plow are better than one, so I can’t imagine why there can be slackening in the implementation of our farm programs,” he said in a statement.
Escudero was referring to Proceso J. Alcala, secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA), and Francis Pangilinan, presidential assistant for Food Security and Agriculture Modernization, which is a Cabinet-rank designation.
For 2015, the agriculture sector has been given a budget of P89 billion. Agencies under the DA, headed by Alcala, were given a budget of P51.7 billion, while four offices in Pangilinan’s turf—the National Food Authority, Philippine Coconut Authority, National Irrigation Authority and Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority—have a combined allocation of P37.3 billion.
Escudero said completing the major programs of the DA for this year, along with increasing farming household income by up to 4 percent, is contingent on the timely release of funds.
“Hindi ’yan matutupad kung may artificial drought of funds,” he said.
The lawmaker cited the case of cassava farming, which may not be able to achieve its full potential and target of 13 tons of produce per hectare every year, if there is always a delay in the release of some P2.1 billion in available funds for high-value crops.
He said the agriculture budget “is something of a good conditional cash transfer” to the sector which, despite making up 12 percent of gross domestic product, hosts the most number of poor.
According to official statistics, poverty incidence among fishermen is the highest among nine surveyed sectors at 41.4 percent, followed by farmers at 36.7 percent.
One in three employed Filipinos are in agriculture, or about 12 million as of latest count.
Escudero said he will soon ask his counterparts in the House of Representatives to convene the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Public Expenditures to look into the spending trends of agriculture agencies.
He said the midyear review is needed as the national government’s spending was P78-billion short of its programmed expenditure of P582.2 billion for the first quarter.
Last year underspending reached P303 billion, or 13 percent of the total appropriations for 2014.