A long-term policy for food security should be based on a policy thrust that leans toward market-enhancing measures and regulations. Where markets fail, the government should intervene without creating more distortions. As regards the political institutions that determine food security, it must be recognized that different agents (e.g., the national government, local governments, the private sector, and local communities) play specific roles in achieving the country’s food security objective. These roles are not linear but interactive. In fact, economic agents should collaborate and cooperate as they work toward food security, especially for those at the fringes of society. It is imperative that these institutions act consistently and collaboratively, because political institutions exert a significant influence on the type of economic institutions pursued by a country.

The conventional wisdom is that the food security objective is the sole mandate of national and local governments. The experience during the Covid-19 pandemic, however, showed that it took a whole-of-society, not just a whole-of-government, approach to effectively meet the challenges posed by the crisis. Addressing the food security problem over the long term likewise requires a whole-of-society approach. The private sector—especially the agribusiness industry and corporations—local governments, and local communities all have to play a critical role in attaining food security. The challenge lies in how to orchestrate, combine, and direct these synergistic efforts. There must be a way of combining public and private sector energies to address food security goals.

It is obvious that more productive agriculture and fisheries will form the strong foundation of food security for the country. Increasing the productivity of agriculture and aquaculture can make food supply available to the population at lower prices. Another significant requirement is the availability of financing, especially for smallholders. Anent to this is the fundamental role of land, water, and irrigation policies in improving agricultural productivity. All these, however, will depend on the quality of the institutions involved in food security, which in turn will depend on the professional competence and responsible leadership shown by the officials heading them. As recommended by Llanto and Basilio, “It is high time to stop the practice of appointing mere political allies, financiers, or political supporters to important government posts. Instead, the first step to strengthen those agencies is to appoint or hire government managers based on merit, professional experience, and integrity of character.”

Here, let me express my personal opinion on how the BBM Administration has contributed to building stronger institutions in the entire agribusiness sector. It was a good sign from the very beginning of his term that the President decided to occupy the position of Secretary of Agriculture himself during the first fourteen months of his Presidency, thereby demonstrating the highest priority he was assigning to agriculture. During this period, he regularly met with top agribusiness entrepreneurs to gain a deep understanding of their sector and to ask for advice on how to address short-term issues (e.g., tariff policies, obstacles resulting from farm fragmentation under the agrarian reform program, and the lack of financing from the private banking sector, which preferred to pay hundreds of millions in penalties rather than lend to agri-agra projects) as well as longer-term strategies to improve agricultural productivity (such as the reconsolidation of small farms and the diversification of agribusiness exports beyond banana, coconut, and pineapple).

After fourteen months of leading the Department of Agriculture, he appointed Francis Tiu Laurel, a very successful aquaculture entrepreneur who has proven to be one of the most competent and street-smart Secretaries of Agriculture I have known since at least the time of President Diosdado Macapagal. I personally witnessed his response to the challenge posed by Llanto and Basilio in their book on long-term policy toward food security. Let me quote extensively the advice Secretary Tiu Laurel responded to:

“The country’s food systems need a better institutional structure for achieving food security. The bureaucracy has for the longest time functioned as independent silos of policies, programs, and interventions. Policy makers, however, now have a more pronounced appreciation of the importance of policy coordination and coherence. Under the frame of a systems approach, a better institutional structure will require (a) vertical coordination between the national government and local governments; (b) horizontal synergy among national government agencies (NGAs) tasked with agriculture and food-related activities; (c) public-private cooperation in agriculture and agribusiness; and (d) collaboration of local communities and corporates with local government units (LGUs) in achieving food security.”

This present Administration has made a significant contribution to putting a long-term strategy for food security in place. It will be incumbent on future Administrations to continue the structural transformation and modernization that will maximize the food production capability of the agriculture and fisheries sector. (It was providential that Secretary Tiu Laurel came from aquaculture and has a deep grasp of the problems and opportunities facing this vital sector in addressing food security in the Philippines.) For the longest time, agricultural policies and budgets have focused on land-based productive activities, mostly concentrated on rice. There was a benign neglect of fisheries and marine culture, despite the fact that the Philippine Archipelago has one of the longest coastlines in the world.

Under the present Administration, there is an evident effort to reverse the long-standing, disproportionate allocation of resources to rice farming, which distorted the agricultural sector and marginalized other activities and commodities that could have led to more inclusive growth and higher incomes for small farmers and fisherfolk. Republic Act No. 7900, or the High-Value Crops Development Act, has not been effectively implemented in the past. In light of the food security agenda, diversification into high-value-added products should be promoted. I celebrate the fact that under the present Administration, we are witnessing some of the leading Philippine entrepreneurs and corporations investing billions of pesos in new products such as bamboo, palm oil, high-value coconut products, dairy, and poultry. I would like to see them diversify even more into the large-scale cultivation of mangoes, avocados, cashew nuts, pili nuts, durian, coffee, and cacao—following the outstanding example of Vietnam, whose total annual exports of agribusiness products have reached some $60 billion, compared to our measly $8 billion.

It is also highly commendable that this present Administration has committed itself to fully implementing Republic Act No. 11203 (Rice Tariffication Law), which replaced quantitative restrictions on imported rice with tariffs of 35 to 40 percent and established the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) funded by tariff revenues. This is an important step toward the diversification necessary for the growth and development of the agricultural sector. Independent-minded economists, both foreign and Filipino, have observed that protectionism has led not to the competitiveness of the Philippine rice industry, but to complacency.

At the beginning of the current Administration, I challenged the leadership to aim for a seven to eight percent annual GDP growth to bring down the poverty incidence to a single-digit level. The three conditions I enumerated for this growth to be attained were: an annual agricultural growth of at least three percent; an annual FDI flow of at least $15 billion; and a significant improvement in governance to minimize leakages from corruption. It is obvious that none of these goals will be fully accomplished for one reason or another. Of these three, however, the BBM Administration can be credited with having laid a strong foundation for the next Administration to realistically aim for that three percent annual growth in the AFF (Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries) sector.