Funding drought over as DA under PBBM reaps 44% budget hike

FILE: A water passage is seen on the lower left of a pathway to irrigate the adjacent rice paddy in Santo Tomas, Peñaranda in Nueva Ecija. (PNA photo by Oliver Marquez)

MANILA – It took a sitting president to concurrently serve as Agriculture secretary for the DA “to finally reap a budget increase,” Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto said.

With Marcos at its helm, the Department of Agriculture will see its budget shoot up by 44 percent, from PHP71 billion this year to PHP102.15 billion next year, the Batangas representative said.

“You can say that this is the beginning of the end of a funding drought,” Recto said in a news release on Sunday.

He added that the increase should be supported because “to beat hunger, a country should not starve its farming sector of funds.”

Recto said eight big agricultural agencies deemed as government corporations will likewise be getting hefty increases in budgetary subsidy from the national government.

From PHP46.2 billion this year, subsidies to the National Food Authority, Sugar Regulatory Administration, National Irrigation Administration, Philippine Rice Research Institute, Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, National Tobacco Administration, Philippine Coconut Authority, and National Dairy Authority will go up to PHP62 billion or 33 percent jump.

Of the eight, the NFA will post the biggest hike, a 71 percent jump from PHP7 billion to PHP12 billion. This will allow NFA to hike its buffer stock capacity from nine days to 15 days.

Next is SRA, which has been earmarked a budget subsidy of PHP1 billion, up by 41 percent, from this year’s PHP712.2 million.

At the so-called “DA Proper”, the Office of the Secretary (OSEC) will see its budget surge from PHP61 billion to PHP90.2 billion, a 48 percent or PHP29 billion hike.

The OSEC will run the National Rice Program whose allocation will be doubled from PHP15.8 billion in 2022 to PHP30.5 billion in 2023.

Of this amount, PHP19.5 billion will fund fertilizer support which, according to Recto, “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 (That’s what happened in) Sri Lanka,” Recto said.

Under the DA plan, PHP5.2 billion will be plowed to the corn sector, PHP5 billion to livestock, PHP2 billion to high value crops, and PHP5.2 billion to fisheries.

Other agencies slated to receive bigger funds are the Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, up 66 percent, or from PHP156 million to PHP259 million, and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, from PHP4.7 billion to PHP6.3 billion, a 35 percent boost.

The DA will also be ramping up infrastructure spending, allotting PHP13.1 billion for farm-to-market roads and PHP29.5 billion for irrigation.

Recto said he is supporting the budget increase in agriculture, “not because it is what the President has asked, but this is what the people want.”

The planned increase in the DA budget comes on the heels of a global study tagging the Philippines as the most food insecure in East and Southeast Asia and 146th out of 171 countries.

“Maraming kulang. Mula asukal, isda, sibuyas, pati bigas (There’s not much supply. From sugar, fish, onion and 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,” he said.

Recto said the agriculture budget should finance “a turnaround plan” that will boost harvest and farmers’ incomes and bring us to food security.”