Why 1.1% agriculture growth?

While the Philippine economy grew by 7.2 percent in 2013, agriculture grew by only 1.1 percent.

Inclusive growth must include agriculture, which is the country’s largest and poorest sector. The National Statistical Coordination Board table below shows how agriculture grew compared with the other sectors:

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) promotes industry, while the Department of Agriculture (DA) promotes agriculture. In 2013, the DTI had a budget of P4 billion, which helped industry achieve a 9.5 percent growth rate. Much of their effort last year concentrated on improving manufacturing. They largely succeeded, because manufacturing grew from 5 percent in 2012 to 10.5 percent last year.

The DA had a P65-billion budget. But agriculture grew by only 1.1 percent. Though the DA budget was more than 16 times that of the DTI, agriculture grew at only a tenth of the industry rate. The fishery subsector—the poorest in the country—grew even less at 0.7 percent.

Analysis

The most valuable lesson I learned during my doctoral studies was what my professor, management guru Peter Drucker, told us: “While it is important to do things right, it is much more important to do the right thing.”

As far as corruption is concerned, DA is doing many things right. Much of the corruption happened during the previous administration. We only have to recall the alleged Napoles scam and the massive malversation of the Agriculture Competitiveness Enhancement Fund.

While corruption still exists, the current DA management has significantly reduced this with effective transparency and accountability measures. However, doing things right is not enough. More strategically, is the DA doing the right thing? One important mechanism for achieving this is the formulation and implementation of subsector roadmaps, with corresponding targets and timetables.

The DTI has already submitted 26 roadmaps for review to the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS), the government think tank. DA has not submitted any. The emphasis DTI has given to roadmaps far exceeds that of the DA.

Also, DTI has appointed a person for each industrial subsector, with relevant government agencies identified to ensure proper implementation. The DA should consider replicating the DTI model because it was largely responsible for last year’s manufacturing growth.

Management

Of course, doing things right is also important. The DA should expand this initiative from fighting corruption to improving management and service delivery.

When I was a DTI undersecretary in 1988, we introduced the ISO 9000 management system to enable us to export products. Many of our foreign buyers did not trust the consistency of our product quality. They therefore required ISO 9000 certification.

Acknowledging that the government should practice what it preaches, we embarked on ISO certification. Though the DA now has some of its units ISO certified, it should similarly implement the ISO management system thoroughly throughout the organization.

2014 budget

This year, the DA budget amounts to P80.7 billion. With a possible addition of P70 billion from the coconut levy interest earnings, the DA may be responsible for P150.7 billion.

With this large budget, it is imperative that the DA does things right. This can be done with the department-wide implementation of ISO 9000. More importantly, the DA should do the right things. This will be greatly helped by implementing public-private subsector roadmaps. With all these in place, agriculture will surely grow. And it will contribute significantly to our elusive 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, email [email protected] or telefax (02) 8522112).