THE Marcos administration has increased by 44 percent the allocation for the Department of Agriculture (DA) under the proposed P5.268 trillion national budget for 2023.
From its P71 billion budget this year, the proposed 2023 budget of the department, which is headed by President Marcos Jr. himself, has been raised to P102.15 billion.
Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto, who is a former senator, said “it took a sitting president to concurrently serve as agriculture secretary for the DA to finally reap a budget increase.”
“You can say that this is the beginning of the end of a funding drought,” Recto said, stressing that the increase should be supported because “to beat hunger, a country should not starve its farming sector of funds.”
Recto said he is supporting the budget increase “not because it is what the President has asked, but this is what the people want” and because the agriculture budget should finance “a turnaround plan” that will boost harvest and farmers’ incomes and bring us to food security.”
Recto noted that eight agricultural agencies that are considered government corporations will likewise be getting hefty increases in budgetary subsidy from the national government, including the now controversial Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), which has been earmarked a budget subsidy of P1 billion from this year’s P712.2 million, or an increase of 41 percent.
SRA officials have recently resigned and are under investigation for ordering the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar without the President’s authority.
From P46.2 billion this year, subsidy to SRA, the National Food Authority, National Irrigation Administration, Philippine Rice Research Institute, Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, National Tobacco Administration, Philippine Coconut Authority, National Dairy Authority will go up to P62 billion, a 33 percent bump.
Of the eight attached agencies, the NFA will post the biggest hike at 71 percent from P7 billion to P12 billion, effectively allowing it to increase its buffer stock capacity from nine days to 15 days.
At the so-called “DA Proper,” the Office of the Secretary (OSEC) will see its budget surge from P61 billion to P90.2 billion, a 48 percent or P29 billion hike.
The OSEC will run the National Rice Program the allocation of which will be doubled from P15.8 billion in 2022 to P30.5 billion in 2023. Of this amount P19.5 billion will fund fertilizer support which, Recto said, “is a must at this time when fertilizer prices have gone through the roof.”
“When crops are denied of nutrients, the resulting low harvest deprives our people of nutrition. ‘Yan ang nangyari sa Sri Lanka (That’s what happened in Sri Lanka),” Recto said.
Under the DA plan, P5.2 billion will be plowed to the corn sector, P5 billion to livestock, P2 billion to high value crops, and P5.2 to fisheries.
Other agencies slated to receive bigger funds are the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, up 66 percent, or from P156 million to P259 million; and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, from P4.7 billion to P6.3 billion, a 35 percent boost.
The DA will also be ramping up infrastructure spending, allotting P13.1 billion for farm-to-market roads and P29.5 billion for irrigation.
The planned increase in the DA budget came on the heels of a global study tagging the Philippines as the most “food insecure” in East and Southeast Asia and placed the country at 146th out of 171 countries.
“Maraming kulang. Mula asukal, isda, sibuyas, pati bigas (A lot is lacking. From sugar, onions and even rice). Our food import bill is rising. The steep rise in the cost of production inputs, from fertilizer to fuel, has lowered production while increasing food prices,” said Recto.