THE region’s economic expansion has seen development of oil and gas resources, mining and the growth of manufacturing industries and service activities. This development over the last 20 years has helped raise millions of people to middle-class status.
However, it is farming, a far more traditional sector, that continues to be the most vital focus for Asean members, most of whose populations continue to rely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Despite the rise of new industries in a region becoming more urbanized, most people continue to live in rural areas.
In 2013 the agricultural sector contributed 14.3 percent of Indonesia’s gross domestic product, 38 percent of Myanmar’s, 48 percent of Vietnam’s, 34 percent of Cambodia’s, 24.8 percent of Lao PDR’s, and 11.2 percent of Malaysia’s and the Philippines’s. The share for the Philippines should be much higher if inclusive growth is going to happen; more efforts must be undertaken to empower the farming community and correct the shortcomings of the agrarian land reform.
The sector’s output derives almost entirely from small holdings which dominate the region’s agricultural landscape. Many farms occupy less than 2 hectares and have low access to technology, information, finance and crucially to markets. The problem is that poor techniques and low-grade inputs, including seeds, lower productivity while farmers struggling to survive are driven to over-culture their lands and deplete scarce water resources as a result.
The consequences are that while millions have been lifted out of poverty, a third of the region’s population still lives on a little more than $2 a day, which represents a massive economic and social challenge for governments in the region.
Another factor increasing the pressure to grow more food is population growth. The number of people living in the region is projected to reach 800 million by 2050, a third higher than at present. Population expansion and changing food-consumption patterns, together with growing demand for dairy and meat products, is making food security a primary challenge for Southeast Asia. The situation is compounded by concerns over water resources and the effects of catastrophic weather events such as the typhoons that struck the Philippines with full force.
The World Economic Forum (WEF), in collaboration with Asean, has launched an initiative known as Grow Asia, focusing on smallholder farmer development and environmental agricultural sustainability. The program is part of the WEF’s New Vision for Agriculture Initiative, which is seeking to bring together both private and public sectors, to work on market-based solutions to the development of inclusive and sustainable farming in the region.
One of the aims is to increase agricultural productivity and profitability while also reducing detrimental environmental effects in cultivation. Other areas of focus are inefficiencies in supply chains, postharvest losses, access to finance and crop insurance, and encouraging the use of technology and attracting investors to the sector. It is good that Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala of the Department of Agriculture is fully subscribing to the vision of Grow Asia. In a meeting with him recently, the private sector conveyed the full support to the program and the interest to jointly implement it.