The Philippines is looking to strike import deals with some of the world’s biggest fertilizer suppliers, including China and Russia, to help lower costs and increase food production amid high inflation, the government said on Tuesday.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., concurrently secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA), also plans to reach out to China, Russia, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia to secure fertilizer supplies at favorable prices, according to a statement issued by his office.
In a meeting at the Bureau of Soils and Water Management Convention Hall in Quezon City on Monday, Marcos directed DA officials to pursue more government-to-government (G2G) talks with these countries and to submit a report on the current sources and prices of fertilizers along with the department’s distribution plan during the planting season.
Part of the discussions during the meeting was the intent to cut government expenditures in subsidizing raw products such as fertilizers, and maximizing the government fund while addressing other concerns of local farmers.
The President has also asked for a farm-to-market road masterplan to identify key areas that need to speed up food mobilization.
Also discussed were finding ways to capacitate the cooperatives and bringing products in the Food Terminal Incorporated (FTI) more efficiently to support the distribution of agricultural products especially to the vulnerable sectors of the community, and to increase rice, corn, fisheries, vegetable, livestock and poultry production.
But farm groups said Marcos should focus on food production subsidies instead FMRs, saying keeping food prices down is more urgent at the moment.
Rafael Mariano, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas’ (KMP) leader, in a statement, said
a more viable solution instead of the FMR masterplan is the grant of cash aid and P15,000 production subsidies to farmers and fishermen as contained in House Bill 406 and House Bill 2024 .
Mariano also said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) last year had 3,440 unrealized projects that include FMRs.
Mariano also cited a Commission on Audit report that called out the DA over its failure to build 796 FMRs as far back as 2016.
Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), echoed KMP’s sentiments on the DA’s pronouncements towards FMRs.
“A significant number of the rural population employed in the fishery and agriculture have left their farmlands and fishing grounds due to high cost of production prompted by expensive fuel. In the fishing sector, for instance, fuel takes up almost 80 percent of the production cost in a small-scale fishing operation. Marcos should first address this low productivity among our rural sectors before anything else,” said Ronnel Arambulo, Pamalakaya spokesperson, in a statement. (With Reuters and Jed Macapagal)
