Despite several attempts to revive the Philippine agriculture industry, a World Bank report showed that the local farm sector had remained the laggard in Asia due largely to misdirected policies.
As such, the efficiency of farmers and fishers to produce food has steadily declined over time, with consumers ultimately shouldering the costs.
The latest World Bank report, entitled “Realizing Scale in Smallholder-Based Agriculture: Policy Options for the Philippines,” said that over the past 25 years, the efficiency by which the country used its land, labor, capital, and materials to produce food had only grown by 32 percent.
This paled in comparison to Indonesia, which grew by 50 percent; Thailand, 67 percent; Vietnam, 73 percent, and China, 130 percent.
The World Bank said Philippine policies continued to be undermined by traditional views, including the strong bias in favor of…
