Severe flooding inundated vast areas of Laguna and Bulacan last month, submerging fields and devastating the livelihoods of thousands of smallholder farmers. Women farmers in Laguna reported losses of up to ₱20,000 per hectare, while partial agricultural losses in Bulacan were estimated at over ₱50 million. Many crops in these areas are not covered by insurance, leaving farmers without financial relief.

This disaster underscores the systemic vulnerabilities of Philippine agriculture, which accounts for less than eight percent of GDP yet employs over 25 percent of the labor force. Despite decades of government programs and donor support, poverty remains high among farmers, tenants, landless workers, and fisherfolk—at around 30 percent. In fact, fisherfolk and farmers consistently register the highest poverty incidence at 27.4 percent and 27 percent, respectively. Compounding these challenges, agricultural productivity has lagged in the past decade, growing by only 1.1 percent compared to 2.2 percent in Vietnam and 1.8 percent in Thailand.

These numbers tell a simple truth: if agriculture remains unproductive, rural poverty will persist. Traditional programs — irrigation, farm-to-market roads, input subsidies, technology transfer, crop insurance, and others — have been helpful, but not transformative. The challenge is structural, demanding a different approach.

Research have shown that three critical weaknesses undermine our agricultural sector:

1. Fragmentation of farms and resources – Smallholders operating in isolation cannot achieve economies of scale.

2. Low productivity and high post-harvest losses – Crop yields have been decreasing, while poor logistics and storage facilities waste up to 30 percent of harvests.

3. Vulnerability to climate risks – Typhoons, floods, and droughts repeatedly wipe out livelihoods, trapping farmers in debt and poverty.

Without addressing these systemic gaps, interventions will remain palliative.

Change requires an all-hands-on-deck approach, starting with:

1. Promoting corporate farming through farm clustering - Government should strengthen policies that encourage clustering or aggregating farm operations into economic units, i.e., 100 hectares or more. This creates the economies of scale needed for mechanization, bulk input purchasing, and systematic irrigation and harvesting. Professional management groups can partner with farmers’ cooperatives/associations and agrarian reform communities to modernize cultivation, marketing, and post-harvest systems. This requires an enabling environment: clear policies on operational consolidation, better access to finance, and incentives for agribusiness partnerships — while safeguarding farmers’ land ownership and decision-making power.

The private sector — particularly medium and large companies — can help secure stable markets by sourcing food directly from farmers, cooperatives, and associations.

2. Integrating agri-tourism in rural development policy - Farm tourism is an underutilized strategy to diversify rural incomes. Countries like Thailand and Taiwan have transformed farms into visitor destinations where tourists buy fresh produce directly. Provinces with strong tourism potential should be prioritized as pilots, jointly supported by the Department of Tourism (DOT), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Department of Agriculture (DA).

3. Accelerating digitalization and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in farming systems - AI can optimize planting, fertilizer use, pest control, and harvest timing. Policy should incentivize private-academe partnerships to develop AI-enabled advisory services accessible to farmers via mobile phones. These should integrate into the DA extension system, ensuring smallholders benefit from data-driven farming.

4. Institutionalizing real-time market information systems - Farmers suffer from asymmetric information, often forced to sell at low prices to middlemen. A national market intelligence system maintained by the DA must provide real-time data on commodity prices, demand centers, and input costs, delivered via SMS and mobile platforms to reach remote areas.

5. Expanding insurance beyond crops to business interruption - Crop insurance alone is insufficient in a climate-vulnerable country. Policies should cover business interruption and income support, enabling farmers to recover after disasters. This requires strengthening the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation, encouraging private-public sector partnerships, and introducing digital claims systems for faster payouts.

To reinforce these strategic shifts, the government needs to invest in R&D and sustain extension and market support services. It should also ensure land tenure to promote long-term farm investments and support consolidation of farm operations.

It is also important to invest in rural infrastructure and village-level cold-chain systems. to reduce post-harvest losses, engage youth and women in agri-entrepreneurship to reverse the aging farmer trend, and forge stronger public–private partnerships to expand processing, logistics, and market access.

The persistence of poverty among farmers is not for lack of effort but because interventions have not addressed structural constraints. Agriculture must be reimagined as an enterprise sector: professionally managed, digitally empowered, resilient to climate risks, and linked directly to markets.

Breaking the cycle of rural poverty requires a paradigm shift. With bold reforms anchored on operational consolidation, digitalization/AI, diversification, and resilience, agriculture can become a genuine engine of inclusive growth.

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“To make agriculture sustainable, the grower has got to be able to make a profit.” - Sam Farr