Can government and food exporters get their act together?

ROBERTO C. Amores. Photo by Amadís Ma. Guerrero, Contributor

Comes now the 11th edition of the Philippine Food Expo,  at the World Trade Center (WTC) Metro Manila in Pasay City.

The food expo assists micro, small and medium enterprises sell their products, expand operations and become global in the future.

The activities will focus on seminars, special events and demonstrations.

There have been success stories among the members of the Philippine Food Processors & Exporters’ Organization.

Philfoodex president Roberto C. Amores cites Agri-Nurture, which is listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange and has gained the confidence of the public; Hylas, which is increasing its market presence and improving productivity; See’s International, which has penetrated the Eastern European market; and Mega Sardines, which is successfully competing with companies in sardine-rich countries like Spain and Portugal.

The food expo, which started last Feb. 23 ends today. It comes at a time of disagreements between government agencies and food exporters over budgetary and other constraints, resulting in what some qualified observers call a failure to get their act together.

“The government and the private sectors are always running into conflict over the bottom-line purpose, over what direction to take, where to spend the budget and how to spend the budget, because of laws,” asserts Amores.

“Take for example the Department of Agriculture,” he points out. “Because of laws enacted, there are limitations at the executive level in, let’s say, diverting the budget to a much needed project. Let’s say rice and corn.”

Rice in particular has a program of self-sufficiency but, the Philfoodex executive says, “it looks like it is going beyond the medium term because of the intricacies in handling the program related to the infrastructure development of irrigation, farm-to-market roads … madami (many) complications that need attention.”

Rice and corn account for more than 60 percent of the agriculture budget, and Amores suggests that it should be redirected: “This is the advocacy that the other sectors have been working with the DA. Apart from rice and corn, other high-value crops include commercial crops, cassava, fisheries … may kakulangan sa (lacking) budget in these particular industries.”

As a result, Amores notes, “we are not really competitive with the other Asean countries. You can only be competitive if you have the volume of production at very competitive cost inputs. Good technology is equivalent to competitive yield. Competitive yield means more yields with less cost.”

Thus, if you have competitive yield, you are able to move your market to a more sustainable level—exports. But what is happening now, according to the Philfoodex scenario, is that we are insisting (“kasi pinipilit natin”) on high-value but noncompetitive crops like mango.

“Our mango production has been declining for the last five years,” Amores reports. “This is due simply to the lack of direction in technology management, simple administration work on fertilizer application, and post production maintenance like pruning of the trees which will generate income.”

He concludes, “So we have a problem. We cannot compete. We have a problem in moving faster and in being competitive in the value chain ladder. We need government to act on this positively, immediately.”

The biggest export sector is semiconductor electronics, which contributes 60 percent of total exports. But, according to Amores, “the value-added percentage of that is a maximum of 30 percent only. Compare this to agribusiness which, using indigenous materials, accounts for a minimum of 60 percent and a high of 70 percent. That translates into a lot of employment. Malaki ang (big) potential in fruits and vegetables.”

Last year, the Philippine Food Expo generated sales of $2.6 million, and a total of more than 25,000 participants and 27,000 visitors.

“We hope to surpass that, domestic and exports,” says Amores. “We are inviting institutional buyers, US buyers, foreign trading companies in the Philippines, food service companies, beverage companies to integrate and look at what they can buy from all the other sectors.”

He foresees bigger sales and revenue compared to last year “and of course much awareness among the visitors and exhibitors that we should bind together, work together, produce better results and be competitive.”