Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte (PPAB)

Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte is batting for an P88-billion increase in the proposed budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) for 2025 to keep the government "on track to achieving food security, if not sufficiency".

In a statement Monday, Aug. 19, Villafuerte said the budget increase will allow the government to by significantly raising spending on priority initiatives such as building irrigation and postharvest facilities, food terminals or processing centers, and Kadiwa outlets nationwide.

“For our country to eventually attain food security, if not sufficiency, the annual budget for agriculture needs to go up in 2025 by at least one percentage point to 4 percent of our GDP (gross domestic product), or equivalent to P88 billion,” Villafuerte said.

He suggested during a recent hearing of the House Committee on Appropriations on the proposed DA budget of P200.19 billion for next year that an extra outlay of P88 billion was needed so the DA can, among others, spend another P25 billion on irrigation, including solar facilities; P10 billion apiece for postharvest facilities and for palay (unhusked rice) productivity programs; and P8 billion for cold storage facilities.

The appropriations panel is right the middle of its per agency deliberations on the P6.352-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) for 2025, or the proposed national budget.

Villafuerte said that portions of the remaining P35-billion additional allocation for 2025 should go to building fishports (P4 billion) and FTI (Food Terminal Inc.) facilities at one facility per region (P4 billion), for an intensive production of coconuts (P3 billion) and high-value crops (P1 billion), for livestock development (P2 billion), and for building more Kadiwa stores (P1 billion).

The former governor said that inadequate funding for the agriculture sector has led to supply and pricing problems on rice and other farm goods, which, in turn, have caused upward pressures on headline inflation that hurt most especially the ordinary consumers.

Citing Octa Research data, Villafuerte said that poor and low-income families find it difficult to make both ends meet because rice and other basic food expenses account for 51.38 percent of the incomes of the poorest 30 percent of Filipinos.

“And the solution, basically, is to increase the budget of the DA,” the Bicol solon said.

The DA originally proposed to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) a budget of P518.8 billion for next year under the NEP that Malacañang eventually submitted to the 19th Congress following the opening of its third and final session.