Salceda seeks higher agriculture budget for 2022
House Ways and Means committee chairman Joey Sarte Salceda said on Saturday, August 14, that he would push for a higher agriculture budget in the 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
Salceda issued the statement after holding discussions with Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary William Dar on the potential of the agriculture sector to resolve price worries and drive economic recovery.
"I think we can go at least 10 percent additional funding. We probably need more, and I'll try to deliver more," the Albay 2nd District representative vowed.
“We had a discussion yesterday on the prospects of the agriculture sector. I explained to Secretary Dar three observations. First, prices will go up as the lag-effects of low interest begin to show. The only way to mitigate that is an increase in the stability and volume of food supply,” he disclosed.
“Second, as I explained in a long lecture as laureate of The Outstanding Filipino or TOFIL award, I am seeing signs of a financial bubble in Southeast Asia. You need something of a ‘sponge’ that will suck up excess financial capital. The most undercapitalized industrial sector in the Philippines is the agriculture sector,” he added.
“Third, agriculture in the Philippines still has so many self-imposed restrictions, on land size, efficiency, use, and ownership. If we can ease some of those restrictions while investing in its development, we can really boost output, far beyond the 2% per year sector growth targeted by the Department of Agriculture,” he continued.
“The economic fleet only goes as fast as the slowest ship. If we move agriculture, we move everything,” Salceda added.
Under the 2021 budget, agriculture was given a P85.6 billion budget.
Salceda said that “the agriculture budget is still much smaller than it should be. It’s a sector with 8% output and 22 percent of the employed force, but just less than two percent of direct public expenditures.”
“The asymmetry in spending is obvious, as I discussed with Secretary Dar. And I promised him we will take a hard look at the budget and see where we can adjust upwards,” Salceda added.
“We already secured an 18-percent increase in the research and development budget of the national government. I am confident that the House leadership is convinced of the importance of the agriculture sector,” he said.