Republic Act (RA) 12215, also known as the Philippine Agriculturists Act, was signed into law on May 29, 2025. The law, in very simple terms, requires anyone engaged in agriculture to be a licensed agriculturist.

While good in theory, as it aims to professionalize the agriculture industry, there are many industry practitioners who expressed concern about how it will be put into practice, stating that, depending on how the law will be carried out, it may have the potential to further alienate interested parties from participating in a field that is already struggling from a lack of interest.

“It is the first time that the profession of agriculture is really put into law. So that itself is a win already,” said Muneer Hinay, founder of non-government organization Kids Who Farm, before switching to Taglish. “But it’s also important to realize that if you want to talk about agriculture in general, you cannot box it into a particular set of policies.”

Samantha Geraldine De los Santos, assistant professor at the Institute for Governance and Rural Development in University of the Philippines, Los Baños, explained how she understood the law based on a forum she attended last year. “What I learned from it is that if you’re working in the agriculture sector, you cannot practice what you’re working on if you do not have [a] license. It also means that part of the policy states that those who would teach within the university, the basic courses that are related to agriculture, must also hold a license.” In theory, this means that an economist who teaches a course on agriculture economy must be a licensed agriculturist.

At the time of the interviews, both interviewees mentioned the need to further study the law, so please take that into consideration when reading this article.

“The regulation of qualifications of local government officials handling agriculture is good,” Hinay says, as this prevents cases of unqualified personnel occupying agricultural posts. He also applauded the increase in salary grade and the agriculture license requirement for those teaching agriculture subjects. “Our volunteers want to be taught by agriculturists.”

De los Santos points out that the last point might be too broad in scope. “If we are going to look at agriculture, it’s not just about the [hard] sciences behind it,” she explained. “One of the battles that we’re always fighting in the academe and the scientific community is that we always leave behind those who work in the social sciences. For me, it’s okay if you would strictly enforce the licenses to those who are into practicing… things need [technical or hard science] expertise… We always leave behind those who try to understand the dynamics of the people in the agriculture sector.”

It isn’t just the social sciences, but research and development in general that will potentially be affected. Hinay used precision agriculture as an example. “Precision agriculture needs scientists, engineers, and data scientists in particular. They aren’t agriculturists,” he said. “While we want to elevate the agriculture profession, we shouldn’t exclude other players that contribute a lot to the ecosystem.”

Hinay also cited the need for continuing professional development as another potential deterrent to people who might otherwise have been interested in entering the field. “It’s like a blanket statement that you have to do everything.” He cites the example of development workers deployed to far-flung areas who may not have the resources to go to the cities, usually the only places where training and testing are available. “There must be flexibility in compliance.”

He also brought up that the increased salary grade, while very favorable to government employees, as their mandate is to serve the people, might hit differently when applied to the private sector as this might render their services too expensive for small farmers. “There must be some flexibility on that as well.”

When asked if the law encompassed farmers, many of whom have grade-school level education and barely have enough money to survive, much less pay to study and take a licensure exam, De los Santos said it was a “grey area.”

“They didn’t mention anything about the farmers, and that’s also one of the things that was asked during the forum: What are we going to do with the farmers? They built their expertise based on experience. They didn’t study. So if we are going to strictly enforce this law and you want farm managers to have a license, you will technically remove the right of farmers to engage in agriculture,” she said, emphasizing that not having a college degree does not mean someone is incapable of excelling in their profession. “We’re building and training farmer scientists, so one question is how are we going to support these farmer scientists if we are going to close the agriculture sector to those who are licensed only?”

We continue this conversation next week, where we also try to answer what members of the industry think can be done to ensure that nobody falls through the cracks when the law is implemented.