Research group IBON said that the recently released second\nquarter 2018 growth figures confirm the fundamental reason for rising food\nprices: underdeveloped agriculture from government neglect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN)\nlaw is the most proximate driver of inflation within the Duterte\nadministration’s control, the agricultural sector’s underdevelopment is the\nlong-term reason for rising food prices. The sector is in deep crisis with\nslowing growth, massive job losses, and domestic food supply insufficient for\nthe growing population, said IBON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The PSA reported drastically slowing growth in agriculture\nto 0.2% in the second quarter of 2018 from 6.3% in the same period last year.\nFirst semester growth has correspondingly been dragged down to just 0.7% in\n2018 from 5.6% in the first semester last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON noted that agricultural growth today falls far behind\nestimated population growth of 1.6% in 2018 and is well below the 7-decade\nhistorical average of 3.0% since 1948. The agricultural slowdown is also\nreflected in massive job losses in the sector. Agricultural employment\ncollapsed by a huge 723,000 to just 9.8 million in April 2018 from 10.5 million\nin the same period in 2017, the group observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Duterte administration only gives lip service to\nimproving agricultural productivity amid this severe crisis of agriculture in\nthe countryside\u201d, IBON executive director Sonny Africa said. He said that the\n2019 budget for Department of Agriculture (DA), for instance, is even proposed\nto be cut by Php862.3 million or a 1.7% decline to Php49.8 billion from Php50.7\nbillion in 2018. These are comparable figures using the cash-based equivalent\nfor 2018 with the cash-based budget for 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe administration also continues long-standing government\nneglect of the sector\u201d, Africa added. \u201cThe combined agriculture and agrarian\nreform budget is only 3.7% of the total proposed cash-based budget for 2019.\nThis is less than the 3.8% share under the obligation-based budget for 2018 and\neven lower than the historical range of about 4-6% since the mid-1980s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Africa, proposals to increase food imports may\nbe necessary but should only be a short-term emergency measure used with\nrestraint if it has been established that there is a shortage. It is possible\nfor more food imports to lower prices but only if traders do not exploit tariff\ncuts just to increase their profits, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith importation, uncompetitive domestic producers not\ngiven enough support by the government will be displaced if trade protection\nfor them is removed. Importation could also tend to worsen the trade deficit\nand add to pressures for the peso to depreciate,\u201d Africa warned.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Research group IBON said that the recently released second quarter 2018 growth figures confirm the fundamental reason for rising food prices: underdeveloped agriculture from government neglect. While the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law is the most proximate driver of inflation within the Duterte administration’s control, the agricultural sector’s underdevelopment is the long-term […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[1440,1442,1441,347,692,1072,494,116,1006],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6977"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8762,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions\/8762"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}