Primo Esleyer
The Visayan Daily Star
June 21, 2011
We have sounded like a broken record all these years, calling for food security for the country because we did not see any tangible moves that would increase food production the last ten years, except importing food.
And here we go again. But this time, we are optimistic. There are moves to address the problem.
Last February there was a food summit, known as the Agriculture and Fisheries 2025 (AF 2025) to provide creative solutions and achievable goals for nurturing agriculture, still seen as the only way to ensure a food-secure future amid soaring food prices and financial shocks that are seen to become more pronounced as the global population grows.
This multi-sectoral sector 2025 focuses and defines the goals, strategies and priority activities for agriculture and fisheries in the next 15 years, and in enhancing the partnership between the private sector, particularly the farmers, fisherfolk, and agri-business, and government in pursuing a long development plan for agriculture.
The convenors of AF2025 are Agriculutre Secretary Proceso Alcala, Sen. Francis Pangilinan, and Rep. Mark Mendoza of Batangas.
Pangilinan and Mendoza chair the agriculture committee in the Senate and Congress, respectively.
The beauty of 2025, Pangilinan said, is where there was division and lack of coordination, this time, both
the legislative and executive are working with the private sector to promote agriculture.
Pangilinan said, the composition of the group is 60 percent private sector, 10 percent academic, and 30 percent government composed of legislative and executive.
For each sub-sector through the multisectoral task forces there are people to be assigned to take care of rice and cereals, fisheries, livestock and yellow corn which is the main ingredient in animal feed, and other crops like fruits, vegetables, commercial crops like coconut and sugar.
Alcala admitted that agriculture used to be overlooked. He said, agriculture takes up only about 2.5 percent of the nation’s total budget but its contribution to the gross domestic product is about 18 percent.
If you include agribusiness the sector’s contribution to GDP is actually 70 percent, according to Sen. Pangilinan. In terms of direct and indirect jobs, agriculture employs up to 70 percent of the country’s labor force, he said.
It is because, whether we like it or not, we are still an agricultural economy. There is no country in the world that has progressed by just sticking to an agricultural economy.
Only in 2009, Pangilinan said, the national budget allotted agriculture P20 billion a year on top of the regular department budget.
He sees a much bigger budget next year for agriculture.
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