|
THE
coauthor of the World Development Report (WDR) 2008
urged the government to follow a three-pronged approach
to develop agriculture and achieve propoor growth.
WDR
coauthor and World Bank (WB) East Asia Rural Development
Unit (EASRD) senior economist Luc Christiaensen said if
the government will follow the three-pronged approach,
the
Philippines
would be able to significantly reduce poverty.
“For
transforming and urbanizing countries like the
Philippines, a three-pronged comprehensive approach is
suggested [these include] focusing on strengthening
agricultural productivity by going beyond the green
revolution to propoor growth in high-value crops and
sustainable agriculture, strengthening the rural
off-farm pathways out of poverty, and investing in poor
area development programs such as Minda-nao comprising
of agriculture development, migration and safety nets,”
Christiaensen said in a statement.
Christiaensen said that by following these approaches,
productivity will improve while distributing the gains
to small holders or small farmers who are included in
the majority of poor people in the country.
He said
that while the Philippines is one of the countries in
East Asia that have made substantial efforts toward
protecting and providing farm subsidies, many of those
who benefit from these concessions are large producers.
The
EASRD senior economist said this would not make a dent
on poverty, which is concentrated in rural areas.
He said,
in East Asia, around 13 percent of a country’s gross
domestic product (GDP) is attributed to agriculture.
However, around 57 percent of the labor force in the
region is in the rural areas.
In the
Philippines WB Rural Development, Natural Resources and
Environment Sector senior operations officer and country
sector coordinator Carolina Figueroa-Geron said that as
much as 70 percent of poor people are in rural areas.
Geron
said that the government must veer away from investing
in specific crops and instead focus on neutral
commodities to increase the chances of other crops from
being grown by farmers, farm-to-market roads, and even
market information on other crops or sanitary and
phytosanitary measures.
She
explained that a large portion of the government’s
agriculture budget goes to growing rice. Geron also said
that investing in smaller irrigation projects for crops
other than rice must also be done by the government.
“The
government must focus on what it’s supposed to do and
everything will fall into place,” Geron said in an
interview after the press conference. “Focusing on
capacity building is a more sustainable way of achieving
growth and development.”
In
addition, WB acting country director Maryse Gautier said
shifting the focus on high-value agriculture with export
potential will help increase incomes from agriculture.
“In
addition to supporting high-value agriculture, better
support systems will be necessary to help workers in
agriculture and fisheries to benefit much more,” Gautier
said in a statement.
Further,
increasing the financial support in agriculture through
public and private partnerships would greatly increase
the chances of achieving the Millennium Development Goal
of halving poverty by 2015.
In the
report, the country was compared with Thailand, which
was considered as one of the countries in East Asia that
were highly similar to the Philippines, particularly in
the 1980s.
The
early 1980s saw the
Philippines
and Thailand with a per capita GDP of $900 and people
living under $1 a day only at 20 percent of the
population. However, through the financial support being
provided by the government of Thailand from 1984 to
2004, it was able to greatly reduce poverty and narrow
income inequality in Thailand.
“Throughout this period, the share of government
expenditures going to agriculture was 50 percent higher
in
Thailand
than in the Philippines,” the report stated.
The
Philippines rapidly achieved urbanization ahead of
Thailand.
By 2004 only 38 percent of the country’s population was
in rural areas compared with 62 percent in 1984.
The
country’s labor force moved out of agriculture through
urban migration which decreased the number of people
living under $1 a day to 13.5 percent and increased the
Gini coefficient of income inequality to 0.44 from
0.41. |
