It’s no secret that rapid urbanization in Calabarzon has left the region, once considered one of the largest agricultural hubs in the Philippines, with less and less arable land that could be utilized for agricultural purposes.
In fact, the shocking revelation by the Department of Agriculture (DA) is that Calabarzon now has less than two percent of the total “area harvested” or land that was used for agricultural purposes in the Philippines.
That was one of the distressing statistics revealed by the DA Regional Field Office IV-Calabarzon (DA RFO IV-A) during its information dissemination seminar and press conference to members of the media in the region last November 29 at Calamba City, Laguna.
The prime suspect in this dwindling number of agricultural lands in the region? The rapid conversion of once vast agricultural estates into residential, industrial, and commercial hubs.
Conversion a big problem
“Sa ngayon po kasi, ang kalaban ng Calabarzon talaga is yung [land] conversion,” Maricris Ite, DA IV-Calabarzon Rice Program Alternate Focal Person, told reporters during the conference.
According to the 2021 Production Performance, only two percent of the total land area used for agriculture is located in Calabarzon, or the equivalent of 110,538 hectares out of the nationwide total of 4,805,077 hectares.
Laguna ranks second in the biggest total area harvested in the region with 28,368 hectares, or 0.5 percent of the total.
This, in turn, has resulted in the province contributing only two percent of the total production yield of agricultural products in 2021: 409,915 metric tons worth of agricultural products out of the nationwide total of 19,960,170 metric tons.
Declining profits, urbanization
There has been agreement among experts that the declining profitability in the agricultural sector, combined with the rapid expansion of urban settlements in the province of Laguna, has resulted in a rapid decline in the number of arable lands in the province.
A 2015 study conducted by Kathreena Engay-Gutierrez of the Southern Luzon State University in Quezon, for instance, noted that in Biñan City alone, the ratio of agricultural lands relative to its total land area declined from 86.9 percent in 1979 to a mere 9.13 percent by 1999, while built-up areas in the city have been increased from 10.5 to 70.0 percent from year 1979 to 1999.
Meanwhile, in Sta. Rosa City, where 96 percent of the total land area was devoted to agriculture in the 1940's, the decision of the local government to open up vast land tracts for industrial estates during the 1990’s and early 2000’s has meant that, by 2009, Sta. Rosa has only 488.9 hectares of existing irrigated rice area, Gutierrez added.
And, given the rapid development of residential and industrial estates in these two cities in the past decades, we can safely assume that the amount of land devoted to agriculture in these cities had shrunk even further.
Local farmers have said that declining profits have resulted in their children or heirs being “disinterested” in continuing to farm their lands, often finding it more lucrative to sell them off to scheming property developers.
DA programs
So what is the DA planning to do with that?
“Ang kaya pong gawin ng DA tungkol diyan [conversion] ay ang ipakita sa farmers na profitable pa ang pagtatanim o pagsasaka,” Ite added during the conference.
When asked by Opinyon Laguna how much they really communicate with the farmers, DA officials said that they conduct caravans or consultative meetings with farmer leaders, especially in hard-to-reach places like island municipalities.
They also emphasized the importance of media partnerships in making sure that feedbacks or complaints from farmers are being heard by their office.
Masagana ‘reboot’
During the conference, Ite, along with DA-IVA Regional Information Officer Radel Llagas, discussed the various programs of the agency to boost farm income and productivity in the region.
Among the programs that were discussed are the Masagana 150, and Masagana 200 programs, an ‘improved and updated’ version of former President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr.’s Masagana 99 agricultural program.
Under Masagana 150, 7.5 tons/hectare will be harvested with a cost of P8.38/kg, creating a P50,000 net income, while under Masagana 200, 10 tons/hectare will be harvested with a lower cost of P7.82/kg, creating a P70,000 net income.
Based on these two programs, the breakeven cost of milled rice will be P27.50 per kilogram.
It will also unify and harmonize the existing National Rice Program, Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, and other programs related to increasing productivity of the rice industry.
Also discussed during the conference is the DA’s Multi-Year Strategy for 2023-2028.
In order to achieve a one-hundred-percent rice self-sufficiency by 2028, local production must grow between 3.81 to 5.07 percent per annum, according to the agency.
To achieve this, the Masagana 200 Program will push further the yield in highly productive municipalities up to 10 tons/ha while the Masagana 150 Program will drive the productivity in medium-yielding municipalities up to 7.5 tons/ha.
One big unanswered question
However, behind all this pep talk and the unveiling of programs that the DA said will resolve the problem of declining agricultural yields in the province, the fact remains that there is still a blatant disconnect between the current trends of low profits for our local farmers and high prices of agricultural products in our markets.
This is one big conundrum that the agency – which is, we must point out, headed by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. who won on a pledge to bring down the price of rice to P20 a kilo – must solve to avert a possibility that our country become a chief “importer” instead of “producer” of agricultural products.
(With reports by Catherine Go and Jai Duena)