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On Friday, the chairperson of the House Ways and Means Committee advocated for reforms that would foster more public-private partnerships in the cattle, poultry, and dairy industries, making the agricultural sector less vulnerable to budget cuts.

Rep. Joey Salceda of Albay made the statement in response to a 1.7 percent drop in agricultural output based on full-year GDP estimates for 2021, which he described as a warning indicator that the country’s agriculture industry is “still fighting to expand” despite a low output base.

“To keep up with population growth and produce enough to meet our country’s needs, we need to increase agricultural output by at least 2%.” In order to fulfill that production goal, we should diversify to other high-value crops if we can’t provide our staple foods at competitive costs,” Salceda said in a statement.

He pointed out that one of the things dragging down the country’s agricultural industry is the livestock sector, which has seen its output fall by 17 percent over the past year.

“One of the biggest issues in the livestock industry is a lack of economies of scale. The majority of producers work out of their homes. Two, there is a scarcity of low-cost inputs. The Philippines’ feed costs are still among the highest in the region. Three, the government’s support is disjointed. You have many agencies for different animal products when you could combine them into a National Livestock, Poultry, and Dairy Program since the inputs, problems, and challenges are all quite similar and necessitate close cooperation,” Salceda explained.

He believes that the agencies in charge of cattle should be merged into a single entity.

He also proposed developing national livestock, poultry, and dairy development plan that would be revisited every five to six years.

Other reforms include allocating tariff revenues from imported corn to the development of low-cost domestic corn, and revenues from imported feed to the development of lower-cost feed alternatives, as well as organizing support services and investing in related infrastructure from farm to slaughterhouse.

“Finally, we must overhaul the Bureau of Animal Industry’s biosafety and inspection systems in order to strengthen the sector’s resilience against biohazards such as African swine disease.” During our conversations on the cattle import procedure in the Committee on Ways and Means, we are already working on it,” Salceda said.

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