IF I WERE THE NEXT PRESIDENT (Part 8 of a series)

By BEN R. PUNONGBAYAN

Founder, Buklod National Political Party

Improving Philippine agriculture, which includes fishery and forestry products, has been a persistent major issue since much of the 20th century. Unfortunately, we still continue to struggle to come to grips with it.

So many official and academic studies as well as private commentaries and opinions abound on how to deal with this extraordinarily important issue. I chose as reference for this commentary a recent study issued by the World Bank in June 2020, “Transforming Philippine Agriculture During COVID-19 and Beyond”. This report provides a high level analysis of the present state of Philippine agriculture and a discussion of policy options to transform Philippine agriculture. Accordingly, unless otherwise specified, the data cited in this commentary come from this source.

Based on data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)…