President Duterte is keen on increasing the budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) tenfold to nearly P500 billion in 2020 to ensure the country’s food security, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said on Tuesday.
During the Cabinet meeting on Monday, Piñol said the President had instructed him to submit a budget proposal for 2020 that is “10 times bigger” than its present budget of almost P50 billion.
Quoting the President, Piñol said Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III would be instructed to give the DA the budget it needs to boost the country’s food production.
“President Rody Duterte last night assured Filipino farmers and fishermen that agriculture and fisheries will be given a bigger budget share to be able to produce more food for a rapidly growing population,” the agriculture chief said in a social-media post.
“Over the last two years, agriculture was given a measly share of the national budget with the DA getting less than 2 percent of the total budgetary pie,” he added.
Piñol said Duterte “emphasized” during the Cabinet meeting “the need for bigger support to agriculture” to meet the increasing demand for food of the country’s growing population.
“[The President told me to] make use of every available area to grow food,” Piñol said in his Facebook post.
The DA had proposed a budget of P200 billion for 2018 but the agency was given only P56 billion. For this year, the DA made a pitch for an allocation of P120 billion, but it received only P49.9 billion.
“The President’s announcement of greater budgetary support to agriculture came just in time as the DA starts its three-day Internal Budget Hearing today [Tuesday] at the Agricultural Training Institute [ATI] compound in Quezon City,” he said.
“With the President’s major policy pronouncement last night, the DA will adjust its budgetary proposals with corresponding targets to be achieved,” he added.
Piñol said Duterte also instructed him to give “greater” focus on agricultural infrastructure, as well as the “farm-to-market food chain to ensure that farmers and fishermen are able to sell their produce at a fair price.”
Economic managers had blamed the sluggish
performance of the agriculture sector for the government’s failure to hit its
growth target of 7 percent to 8 percent for 2018. The agriculture, fisheries
and forestry sector was the laggard among all economic sectors last year,
according to data from the Philippine Statistics
Authority (PSA).
The DA said in January that typhoons, including a super typhoon, made farm production difficult in 2018, causing full-year expansion of the sector to settle at 0.56 percent, lower than the 4 percent recorded in 2017.
In its quarterly report, the PSA noted that the crops subsector production in 2018, which contributes about half of the total output, declined by nearly 1 percent due to the series of typhoons that battered the country.
Total palay output last year fell by 1.09 percent to 19.066 million metric tons, from 19.276 MMT recorded in 2017. Rice production in the fourth quarter alone declined by 2.20 percent to 7.156 MMT, from 7.317 MMT in the same period of 2017, according to the PSA.
“This was attributed to the reduction in area harvested brought by the effects of habagat in Ilocos region and Central Luzon, and the damages caused by typhoons Henry, Inday, Josie, Luis, Ompong and Rosita in Northern Luzon,” it added.
Data from the PSA also indicated that 11 more crops, including corn and some high-value crops, recorded production declines. The PSA attributed this to the reduction in harvest area and unfavorable weather conditions.