THE Department of Agriculture (DA) will prioritize this year the strategy of further providing nationwide infrastructure and post-harvest facilities that will increasingly boost Philippine agriculture’s performance over the longer term particularly as government is promoting its centerpiece Food Staples Sufficiency Program (FSSP).
“In general, we shall veer away from provision of private goods and shift to the more strategic intervention of providing public goods which should be the role of government in the first place,” it said.
The department said such public goods plus research and development, education as well as extension and training services will yield longer-term real productivity in agriculture nationwide.
“Lessons in the past taught us providing short-term interventions like direct input subsidies not only cultivates a culture of dependency among farmers and fishers but breeds corruption and wastes scarce government resources,” DA noted.
Such subsidies include fertilizer, seeds, chemicals and pesticides.
DA earlier identified several infrastructure projects for funding using part of this agency’s P61.73-billion budget for 2012.
Among such projects are various large-scale irrigation-related work across 223,850 hectares of agricultural land nationwide as well as another 4,584 small-scale irrigation undertakings requiring shallow tube wells, spring development, small water reservoirs and small water impounding.
“We hope to regain momentum in irrigation,” DA said.
The infrastructure projects also include constructing and rehabilitating some 1,284 kilometers of farm-to-market roads and establishing trading centers across strategic locations in Benguet, Pangasinan, Camarines Sur and Cebu provinces.
DA likewise said part of its 2012 budget will be for post-harvest interventions like distributing some 4,526 units of equipment and machinery as well as providing nearly 2,777 drying, storage, processing and transport facilities.
The budget will further cover maintenance of mariculture parks as well as regional and municipal fish ports nationwide.
“An important feature of FSSP is frontloading investments particularly in infrastructure and post-harvest facilities,” it said.
Programs of DA are aligned with targets under the 2011-2016 Philippine Development Plan (PDP) which seeks to develop a competitive and sustainable agriculture and fisheries sector in the country.
PDP’s three thrusts to achieve such goal are improving food security while increasing rural income levels, raising the sector’s resilience to climate change and enhancing policy environment governance. [PNA]
