AGRICULTURE Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. urged the House Committee on Appropriations to approve his department’s proposed budget of P200.19 billion for 2025, even as he said it would not be enough.
During the Appropriation Committee budget hearing on Monday, Laurel cited the persistent challenges plaguing the country’s agri-fishery sector and emphasized the urgent need for increased funding for the Department of Agriculture (DA).
“For the past three decades, our agri-fishery sector has faced persistent challenges with low productivity and competitiveness,” he said.
He added that high production costs and inadequate infrastructure investments have restricted growth, raising concerns about national food security.
“Our proposed budget for 2025, amounting to P200,195,357, I think is still insufficient, is designed to address these needs,” the agriculture chief said. He noted that present challenges justify the need for substantial investments.
The agriculture chief also addressed the impact of global disruptions such as the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions, which he said exposed weaknesses in the country’s food production and distribution systems.
Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, Laurel emphasized the sector’s vulnerability to climate change, particularly the impact of severe typhoons and prolonged dry spells.
The proposed budget for 2025 was lower than this year’s P208.58 billion and from the DA’s initial proposal of P513.81 billion.
Laurel has said that about P1.2 trillion is needed to irrigate an additional 1.2 million hectares of rice land to boost rice production and reduce importation.
He said about P93 billion is needed for the next few years to build proper post harvest facilities to reduce rice and corn wastage.
The proposed 2025 budget “will fund essential interventions for agricultural modernization, increased productivity, global competitiveness, and resilience against disasters, climate change, and pandemics,” he said.
DA Undersecretary for Finance Nora Oliveros said that while the economy continued to grow, the agriculture sector was not growing as fast as the whole economy.
Oliveros said the sector’s share in the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017 fell to 8.6 percent in 2023.
Based on data shown by the DA to the House committee, the agriculture and fisheries sector’s share in the GDP was 10.1 percent in 2017, 9.7 percent in 2018, and 9.2 percent in 2019. The figure rose to 10.2 percent in 2020 before it fell to 9.6 percent in 2021 and 8.9 percent in 2022.
While the budget for agriculture is increasing, Oliveros said the DA wanted to increase its 3.62 percent share of the national budget for 2024 to 4.5 percent.
“However, for 2025, our share has gone down to 3.15 percent”, she said, referring to the proposed DA budget in the 2025 National Expenditure Program.
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