Despite growth experienced in 2022, the agriculture sector has lagged substantially prompting a legislator to call for increased subsidies and ayuda to the farmers and fishermen so that they can get out of poverty. Education likewise did not recover much from the pandemic.
Noting the flat growth in agriculture in 2022, Rep. Bernadette Herrera of Bagong Henerasyon Partylist expressed deep concern
by the practically flat growth in the agricultural sector output of 0.5 percent for the whole year and a negative 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter, which impaired the country's food security.
"It is clear that the current levels of agriculture subsidies are not enough. We must save our farmers and fisherfolk from poverty and unemployment," she said in a press statement.
"I note that for all of 2022 the government expenditure component of GDP increased by 5 percent and that consumer confidence in our economy surged as shown by the 8.3 percent jump in household final consumption expenditure. Alongside these, the output of the services sector grew by 9.2 percent and the industry sector by 6.7 percent.
The agriculture sector is clearly lagging behind and it must be saved, she added.
We are elated that our country’s gross domestic product last year grew by 7.2 percent in the fourth quarter and by 7.6 percent for the whole year. This means the annual growth target range of 7.0% to 9.0% was achieved at 7.6 percent. This growth could have been higher but there are still some businesses recovering and some sectors still hesitant to return to full in-person operations. This growth could have been higher if not for the high inflation we have had especially in 2022. NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan himself said GDP could have been 1% to 2 percent higher but inflation was the dampener.
Worth pointing out is that the entire local economy had a total output P19.9 trillion in 2022, which is a recovery from P17.5 trillion in 2020 and P18.5 trillion from 2021—the worst years of the pandemic. Note that in 2019, the total GDP output was P19.38 trillion.
If there was no pandemic and if inflation was not elevated, our GDP could have been P21 trillion plus last year I think. So we really must have a sustainable exit strategy and an effective program against inflation by reducing supply, production, distribution, and public spending problems.
She said that In the medium term, she favors a significant increases in direct cash and in-kind subsidies to farmers, fisherfolk, and livestock raisers as part of a multi-year economic stimulus package from 2024 to 2028.
The agriculture sector clearly needs these subsidies to boost its economic output and reduce unemployment and underemployment. This sector must be modernized. We must have much more vertical farming, indoor farms, fish and seafood hatcheries, more fish farms, and more organic farming because these are the agri sectors that have heavy agritech inputs. We must have ways to channel runoff water and floodwaters into aqueducts and irrigation.
The education sector output as a whole grew by 7.6 percent but it could have been higher if the private schools returned to full in-person face-to-face classes. The education sector suffered a lot during the pandemic and the effects of this will linger in terms of learning deficits because of the isolation of students and their teachers. But it is already good news that the education sector is recovering as shown by its output growth from P687.6 billion in 2020 to P801 billion in 2022. Much of this growth is because of the massive investments to make online classes happen.
She observed that education has been having economic difficulties since the 2017-2018 cycle when its growth was only 4.7 percent and then this fell to negative 10.2 percent in the 2019-2020 cycle. Education was already in a state of decline from 2017 to 2019, according to historical PSA data.
I am concerned that this decline got worse, so much so that the private schools—most of which are MSMEs—suffered a lot during the pandemic. Many of the MSME private schools shut down and tens of thousands of their teachers became unemployed or had to survive as online tutors.
Tags: #BagongHenerasyonPartylist, #agriculture, #education, #economicgrowth, #inflation