From the outset of the Duterte government\u2019s\nmilitary lockdown as its response to the spread of the coronavirus, it has\ndirected the continuous flow of food commodities, along with medicines and\nother essentials. Food is inarguably essential to people\u2019s survival during a\npandemic and in its socioeconomic aftermath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Government\u2019s response however has fallen short\nin ensuring food production and supply. In fact, the military and authorities\nhave controlled even the movements of the direct producers, both in tending\ntheir farms and selling their produce to the markets. Even activist volunteers\nwho endeavored to bridge the farmers\u2019 produce to urban consumers and to deliver\nrelief goods to the farming families were detained and accused of violating\nquarantine rules and inciting to sedition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing is, government has erased \u201cfood\nself-sufficiency\u201d from its agricultural planning principles, now totally\nunheard of in the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022. It has instead focused\non \u201ceconomic opportunities\u201d anchored on \u201cmarket orientation\u201d. The country\u2019s\nlack of food self-sufficiency has made government\u2019s coping with crises such as\nCOVID-19 utterly chaotic. It is the\neconomy\u2019s sinkhole that will make us fall deeper into a COVID-aggravated\neconomic crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, eight weeks into the military lockdown,\nwhile it continues to wrestle with its insufficient health response, the\nDuterte government is talking of a \u201cnew normal\u201d in agriculture. A closer look\nat the plan, however, reveals it to be a bunch of old habits that have hampered\nPhilippine agriculture from achieving even the most basic goal of food\nsecurity, much more self-sufficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pre-COVID crisis<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Only eight weeks ago, the country\u2019s \u201cnormal\u201d\nagriculture was having its worst crisis in decades. The sector lost 1.4 million\njobs in 2017-2019, the highest number in a three-year period in the last two\ndecades. Its average annual growth rate of 2.1% in the same period is also\nlower than the 3.5% average in the last 70 years. The sector has also reached\nits smallest share in history at just 7.8% of the country\u2019s gross domestic\nproduct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first quarter of 2020, agriculture\nposted a 1.2% decline in output, finally collapsing after a momentary recovery\nfrom a decline in 2016 and a three-year slowdown thereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neoliberal policies that government has\nrecklessly implemented are the culprit in agriculture\u2019s near demise. Starting\noff with the evasion of free land distribution to tillers and rampant land\nconversions to favor finance capital, government has oriented agriculture\ntowards commercialization, high value cash crops, inorganic chemicals\ndependency, paid-for irrigation, imported machinery, and trade liberalization.\nAgriculture is not a government priority, which is putting it mildly when the\nfigures clearly manifest state neglect. The 3.5% average share of agriculture\nand agrarian reform in the 2017-2020 budgets is the lowest in two decades. In\n2018, the Duterte administration delivered the coup de grace<\/em> with the liberalization of rice imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Landowners and merchants have exploited this\n\u201cnormal\u201d \u2013 that is the classic story why our food frontliners are the most\ndestitute and hungry in Philippine society. And like adding insult to injury, the\ngovernment points to farmers\u2019 lack of capacity and technology (and interest to\ncarry on) as the reason why food self-sufficiency is not feasible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Government gross neglect<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, COVID-19 happened. Government agencies\ncould not even provide a full picture of our food buffer stocks. The Philippine\nStatistics Authority has stopped updating the rice inventory, for instance.\nThis showed that, as of March 1, our rice stocks were enough for only 65 days,\nquite below the 90-day buffer. Vietnam\u2019s announcement that it would implement a\nrice export ban added to Filipinos\u2019 anxieties \u2013 Vietnam accounts for about 38%\nof Philippine rice imports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A day before the declaration of a lockdown,\neuphemized as \u2018enhanced community quarantine\u2019 (ECQ), the Department of\nAgriculture (DA) made assurances that there was enough food for everyone in\nMetro Manila. The stocks of rice, vegetables and root crops, poultry and meat\nproducts, fish, and eggs were sufficient. It took time before some local\ngovernment units started distributing relief foods, and even then mostly\nunhealthy canned sardines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farming has been disrupted. IBON estimates about\n2.5 million farmers, farm workers and fisherfolk economically dislocated by the\nECQ. The ECQ guidelines specifically allow establishments engaged in food\nproduction and trade but are painfully quiet about the farmers. Farmers\u2019\norganizations have said it succinctly \u2013 there is no work\nfrom home for them. They are subsistence farmers who will go hungry if they are\nnot allowed to farm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Duterte government\u2019s COVID response for\nagriculture under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act is to provide Php5,000 cash\nassistance each to only 591,246 beneficiaries under the Financial Subsidy to\nRice Farmers (FSRF). But as of 28 April 2020, seven weeks into the lockdown,\nthe Duterte government has served only 266,284 rice farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farming families may have been given cash\nassistance through the social amelioration program of the Department of Social\nWelfare and Development (DSWD), which even then has only served 57% of its\ntarget 18 million beneficiaries as of 1 May 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Granting that the rice farmers have indeed\nreceived subsidies, IBON estimates these to be equivalent to only Php80-119 per\nday over 49 days of lockdown, or less than one-fourth of the already low\nofficial poverty line of Php353 per day for a family of five. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Government\u2019s meager and much-delayed response\nto the pandemic is pushing the poor and vulnerable farmers and fisherfolk\ndeeper into poverty and hunger, which gets more and more morally unacceptable\nat this point in our crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neoliberal inertia<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The DA is among the first agencies to talk of\na new normal. We should rethink and restructure our policies and practices,\nsaid DA secretary William Dar. But the DA\u2019s emphasis on the continuation of\nneoliberalism especially under a global economy that is about to plunge into a\ngrave depression cannot be missed. The Duterte government cannot fake a new\nnormal narrative when its transition plan remains neoliberal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The budget priority for the DA to transition\nto its \u201cnew normal\u201d remains for cash assistance instead of production support.\nThis is under the Rice Farmers Financial Assistance (RFFA), which is in line\nwith the implementation of the Duterte administration\u2019s rice liberalization\nlaw. The RFFA targets to provide Php5,000 to rice farmers who are tilling 0.5-2\nhectares. The FSRF is in addition to RFFA and is packaged as the COVID-19\nresponse, which targets rice farmers who are tilling one hectare and below. The\ntotal target beneficiaries of both packages are 1.2 million rice farmers\nnationwide, but there are 2.5 million rice farmers in the country who are\ndefinitely dislocated by rice liberalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The program priority is a food resiliency\naction plan that is aimed at an unhampered flow of food and agri-fishery products.\nIt is anchored on the aforementioned cash assistance as consumption stimulus\nand market links such as the Kadiwa program, market satellites and market on\nwheels. In short, it is anchored on trade, again not so much on strengthening\nfarmers\u2019 production. The plan is also about popularizing urban and backyard\ngardening, which is overly focusing on individual consumers to go on survival\nmode instead of improving the production and conditions of farming communities\nin the real spirit of bayanihan<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DA has proposed to implement nationwide\nthe \u201cAhon Lahat, Pagkaing Sapat (ALPAS) Laban sa Covid-19\u201d or what it dubs as\nPlant, Plant, Plant program to \u201cincrease the country\u2019s food adequacy level\u201d,\nwith an approved Php31-billion supplemental budget. But this will be done by\nintensifying the use of quality seeds, inputs, modern technologies \u2013 which have\nbeen proven from experience to only add to the farmers\u2019 debt burdens. The DA\nunfortunately has perennially acted as a marketing agent and endorsed the sale\nof seeds, inputs and farm machinery of big agribusiness to Filipino farmers,\nwhile it has shunned the promotion of agroecological practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Duterte government still emphasizes that\nin order for agri-fishery to grow and cope with emergencies such as pandemics,\nthe sector needs to attract more investments and resources and partner with the\nprivate sector. And there we are back on the neoliberal road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Build the momentum<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Surely, food self-sufficiency can be our new\nnormal. But first in the face of a pandemic, farmers need fast and sufficient\nrelief assistance, both for their daily needs and health services and as\nproduction subsidy. In the same manner that urban consumers should be relieved\nof paying their bills during COVID-19, farmers should have been long ago\ncondoned of their mounting debts from unpayable land amortizations, loans from\nunscrupulous traders, and even from availing of government lending programs.\nThen, farmers and fisherfolk should be allowed to go to their farms and on\nfishing trips and deliver their produce to the markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in the long-term, food self-sufficiency is about the assertion of an entire range of human rights. The state should recognize the right to food, the right to produce food, the right to till the land, and to have control of the land that farmers have been tilling for generations. Farmers have the right to choose their own production system, so as not to be dictated by the whims of the market and made vulnerable to market vagaries. We can envision an agriculture that is moving away from the profit-oriented concept of value chain that disregards the small producers and their environment, and move towards sustainable farming practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, we can build the momentum for food self-sufficiency only from the farmers\u2019 struggle and movement for genuine agrarian reform. And that should be our new normal. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" FEATURES<\/p>\n From the outset of the Duterte government\u2019s military lockdown as its response to the spread of the coronavirus, it has directed the continuous flow of food commodities, along with medicines and other essentials. Food is inarguably essential to people\u2019s survival during a pandemic and in its socioeconomic aftermath. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048,3],"tags":[2199,1885,347,744,494,223],"class_list":["post-9659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banner","category-features","tag-covid-19","tag-crisis-in-philippine-agriculture","tag-duterte-administration","tag-food-self-sufficiency","tag-philippine-agriculture","tag-philippine-environment","wpautop"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-24 04:17:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9659"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9662,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9659\/revisions\/9662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}