There are so many reforms and changes that need to be done in the DA…but thank God the President has placed a hard-nosed and street smart guy at its helm
The new agriculture secretary, derided by some insiders as knowing little about soil-based concerns and having no college degree at that, is proving to all that a street-smart businessman can easily adjust to the existing environment of a very critical government agency.
He is off to a good start, and we wish him well as he grapples with the challenges that 2024 brings to the agricultural sector.
Even before the Commission on Appointments confirmed him, Sec. Kiko Tiu Laurel sternly gave a deadline to the traders who were given open-ended import permits by the Bureau of Plant Industry to bring in their rice quick or face cancellation of their permits.
Quickly, he must have realized that DA officials were hoodwinking the public into thinking that import permit quantities were assurance enough that rice price indexes would taper down.
The problem, as I have written in previous columns, is that traders hold on to their permits without actually bringing in the rice. Only if the price is right and profits assured will they import, but naturally.
Sec. Kiko soon realized that DA’s data bank needs tons of improvement.
With the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics abolished and data-gathering subsumed under the Philippine Statistics Authority, and another critical data source, the National Food Authority castrated and key responsibilities downgraded, the data that was fed to his predecessor, El Presidente mismo, were unreliable.
These led to wrong policy pronouncements and misguided decisions such as the price cap on rice that tried to defy the law of supply and demand that clearly failed.
Let’s face it: it is very difficult for us to be self-sufficient in rice.
During my stint at the NFA, I always said that on a good year with no strong typhoons, we would always have a 10 percent shortfall between domestic production and the consumption needs of a huge population.
When strong typhoons strike, that would be a 15 percent shortfall at the very least, which would require importation BUT the right timing is critical.
There is a medium-term solution to this insufficiency of domestic production, but that would require amending our laws, both recent and obsolete.
Last year, the DA defied NFA’s warnings as early as May, impressing upon the president of forthcoming good production.
Then India banned exports of non-basmati rice, and the whole international market tightened. Importers, even with their permits, couldn’t buy.
Now with El Nino, we could go higher than a 20 percent deficit. Our population roughly needs 14 million tons or 280 million 50-kilogram sacks per annum.
Optimum local production is only 19 million tons of palay (which likely we did not achieve), which milled into rice is just 11.4 million tons at best.
As previously stated here, the forthcoming El Nino is strong, hitting some 17 provinces and even more in Luzon, where our main food producers are.
Worse, warmer ocean temperatures also bring stronger typhoons, which means drought followed by torrents of wind and rain.
As the new year began, the DA Secretary chopped off some of the dinosaurs in his agency, and is reshuffling officials, putting them where they could be of better use.
And he has a level-headed spokesman now in ASec Arnel de Mesa. That is truly refreshing.
Meanwhile, Benguet farmers are giving away harvested carrots because they would lose money at the P1 per kilo ex-farm price, as importers have flooded the market with chemically-cleaned and nice-looking carrots from China.
Tomatoes are rotting, dumped by desperate growers in Nueva Vizcaya and elsewhere, when cold storage facilities and tomato processing plants have always been the solution, but DA and LGUs have failed to incentivize these in the right places.
Maybe that is one area where the Joel Consing’s Maharlika can help, in partnership with the private sector. After all, Maharlika is funded by Landbank and DBP, ne c’est pas?
Cold storage facilities are now in cargo container compact with low power consumption, and Lego-type fabrications are quick to put up.
Sec. Kiko could see 10 of these containers at the Food Terminal, which MECO donated to DA in my time.
He may also want to visit a recently opened Taiwan demonstration farm in Tarlac City, and a Mushroom Farm in Baguio, initiated by TECO and MECO also in our time.
There are so many reforms and changes that need to be done in the DA, which could be the subject of future articles, but thank God the President has placed a hard-nosed and street smart guy at its helm.