Agriculture and the legislature
June 6 was the last working day of the 15th Congress. On that day, a critical component of the legislature met to take action on agriculture. This is the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization (Cocafm). The Cocafm was created as part of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (Afma). Its mandate is to promote agriculture development through modernization.
The Cocafm under the 15th Congress was convened three years ago. Its chair was Senator Francis Pangilinan; its co-chair, Rep. Mark Mendoza. Unlike other Cocafms in the past, this Cocafm conducted a strategic planning workshop to determine its main focus for the following three years. It decided to concentrate on increasing the incomes of farmers and fisherfolk. Priority areas were credit, irrigation, and private sector participation.
In cooperation with the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Cocafm called for a wide ranging credit summit. Participation came from banks, other financial institutions, government agencies, agribusiness, farmers and fisherfolk. Many valuable recommendations were formulated, such as access to credit by small farmers and fisherfolk. A key action item was to revamp a financial source of much corruption: the Agriculture & Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (Acef).
The Cocafm immediately made changes. One was to expand the decision-making authorities by supplementing the Secretary of Agriculture with the Chairs of the Senate and House Committees on Agriculture. This was for check and balance purposes. Another was to settle the differences among the DA, the Department of Finance (DOF) and the Department of Budget and Management.
Decisions were taken to address the valid concerns of DOF and DBM so that the funds would be properly used and not wasted away due to corruption and incompetence.
Last June 6, all these differences were resolved. The Acef Funds which had been suspended can now be released.
The irrigation budget more than doubled from a few years earlier to P12.5 billion in 2011, then again doubled in just one year to P24.5 billion in 2012.
But the impact on small farmers’ yield and income was not commensurate to these large budget increases.
Two steps were taken. The first was to have less emphasis on establishing new large irrigation systems and put more resources into the small irrigation systems as well as the repair and rehabilitation of existing systems. This would have a larger and more direct impact on small farmers. The second step was to have private sector monitoring of the increased irrigation budget, which had been riddled with corruption charges.
The first step has been taken. The second step has been partially accomplished. Though there is private sector monitoring, the members of the monitoring teams are mostly former National Irrigation Authority (NIA) retired employees. But to these retirees’ credit, they have uncovered areas of corruption and incompetence in a written report that the Cocafm and DA can now address.
But the greatest contribution of the last Cocafm was the institutionalization of people participation in agriculture governance. During the start of their three-year term, Pangilinan and Mendoza proposed to the Cocafm a summit that would gather the top agriculture leaders in the country.
Upon Cocafm’s approval, Pangilinan and Mendoza then discussed the proposed conference content with Agriculture Secretary Alcala as well as farmers, fisherfolk, and agribusiness leaders. The consensus was to have an agriculture and fisheries long term vision for 2025 (AF2025). Short and long-term plans were agreed upon to achieve this vision. This has resulted in important decisions made through unprecedented tripartite legislative-executive-private sector cooperation.
In last week’s final session, the Cocafm passed a resolution to institutionalize a private sector advisory body for the Cocafm. Among this body’s members will be the private sector leaders who were elected during the February 2011 AF2025 Conference. They have been interacting with the executive and legislative leaders for the last 2 years and 3 months.
The new Cocafm under the 16th Congress should build on the solid foundation laid down by the last Cocafm. Further improvements in the critical areas of credit, irrigation, and people participation can then be made. With these follow-up actions, the AF2025 vision and the key objective of increasing farmer and fisherfolk incomes will be attained. This will significantly contribute to our country’s primordial goal of inclusive growth.
(The author is chair of Agriwatch, former Secretary for Presidential Flagship Programs and Projects, and former Undersecretary for Agriculture, Trade and Industry. For inquiries and suggestions, e-mail [email protected] or telefax (02) 8522112).
