Tuesday, July 22, 2008 Businessman calls for more support for RP agriculture
AN OFFICIAL of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) is urging the government and the private sector to support the country’s agriculture.
PCCI president Donald Dee said support for agriculture would mean higher food production.
He said government should make farming a viable livelihood in the country. One way to do this, he added, would be to lift taxes on fertilizers.
He stressed that the approach to agriculture and food policy should change.
“We resorted to importing rice several years ago because it’s cheaper. But it’s not the case now. We have to make use of (what little land we have left) to till, (we must) use it efficiently,” he said.
Dee said that since the government is able to increase its revenues through the value-added tax, it should be able to deliver necessary programs to support various sectors.
Tax change
“As we do that, we suggest that our taxation system be changed to include consumption tax for luxury expenses so that the poor who always get their supply of goods from wet markets, will not be prejudiced,” said Dee, also special envoy of the president for trade negotiations, in an earlier interview.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has started distributing fertilizer discount coupons worth P500 for every hectare of land that is used to grow rice. The distribution of the coupons is done in time for wet season planting, which is May to October.
“The local government unit will also give its counterpart in the same form or through other schemes,” said DA 7 Executive Director Ricardo Oblena.
In Central Visayas, about 63,000 hectares of land are targeted to benefit from the distribution of these coupons. This translates to P31.5 million worth of coupons.
“We really want the farmers to (be able to) use fertilizers. What we’re giving out are inorganic fertilizers. If they use them, we are seeing a boost in production by 3.5 to five metric tons per hectare,” said Oblena.
This could help improve the “dismal” performance of almost all agricultural products—crops, fisheries and livestock—in the region in the first quarter this year, he said.
Data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics 7 shows that the region’s agriculture sector decreased in production by 4.3 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year.
Better yield
Crop production declined by 4.2 percent, although production of fruits and staple crops like palay and corn continued to improve.
The National Development and Economic Authority noted that palay production increased despite the damage on about 13 hectares of palay farms in Bohol and Oriental Negros due to plant diseases.
“Bohol and Oriental Negros managed to increase their palay production by 71 percent and 38 percent, respectively. Cebu, which is not a major producer of palay also realized a 33-percent increase in production,” Neda reported.
The same agency also observed that the increased corn production during the first quarter was a result of the adoption of good agricultural practices by farmers and the use of good quality seeds.
“(It) could have been higher had the weather during the reproductive stage of the crop been favorable,” it said. (NRC)
