Agriculture: 2025 performance and 2026 recommendations
As the year ends, we consider the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) 2025 performance in its domestic, international and governance areas. This may suggest directions for a better 2026.
Domestic
Three events come to mind. First, there has previously been inadequate support for our ailing livestock sector. This past year, the DA succeeded in getting the Animal Industry and Competitiveness Act (Republic Act No. 12308) to implement its needed modernization and financing. This also created a full-line agency with both domestic and regulatory mandates down to the municipal level.
Second, farmers have always been too dependent on the middleman to sell their produce. The DA now has full backing for the full implementation (Executive Order No. 101) of the Sagip Saka Act, first proposed by Sen. Francis Pangilinan in 2019. This directs all government agencies, state universities and local governments to procure food supplies directly from accredited farmer and fisher cooperatives and enterprises. This gives our farmers much more product and market access.
Third, cheap rice price imports without the necessary trade safeguards flooded the market and caused tremendous farmer income losses. With strong political will, Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. banned rice importation (EO 93) until the proper safeguards are in place.
International
International relations reached an all-time high. First, with the new DA Export Development Office created by Tiu Laurel and now headed by Undersecretary Philip Young, the Philippines’ 21-percent agriculture export growth for this year’s first semester exceeded both Vietnam’s 17 percent and Thailand’s one percent.
Second, the DA expanded our export market opportunities in both product and location. Examples are durian to China, mango to Italy and tamban to major markets of Europe. This is because tamban is now successfully included in the Codex Standard for Canned Sardines and Sardine-type products.
Third, on the Trump tariffs, the DA won the decrease of the initial 19-percent tariff to zero percent for our agricultural products like coconut and tropical processed fruit products. The DA also successfully resisted tremendous pressure and kept the existing tariffs needed to protect our critical products like rice, corn, poultry and livestock.
Governance
For governance, significant promotion and regulation achievements were delivered. First, to ensure private sector priority concerns are immediately addressed, Tiu Laurel created more than 40 agriculture commodity boards that communicate monthly with him.
Second, regulation enforcement dramatically increased, such as the threefold jump in the agriculture smuggling apprehensions from the time of his predecessor.
Third, Tiu Laurel has acted decisively to both penalize and prevent corruption. He ordered the investigation of one undersecretary, three assistant secretaries, 10 directors and 33 employees.
Recently, he mandated a completed checklist before DA Regional Executive Directors (REDs) could decide on agriculture grants. Already, three REDs have been relieved of their posts, partly because of their checklist noncompliance.
2026 recommendations
On the domestic front, the DA must now strengthen our priority industry development plans and identify private sector champions to colead their implementation. Sufficient support should first be given to a specific product area before tariffs are irresponsibly lowered.
On the international front, since exports are key to our agricultural growth, all critical international trade functions should be placed under one undersecretary for the necessary coordination and unity of command.
On governance, while the anticorruption successful initiatives and penalties should continue, more focus should be given to increasing competence. There is a case today where an assistant secretary documented a 10-month delay because two bureaus could not come to a reasonable solution, at the expense of agriculture stakeholders. Corrective action should have been immediately taken.
Another case is when an agency head released to two major dailies his claim that the public-private sector reporting of deficient agriculture machine utilization had absolutely no basis. In fact, there was a documented finding that 37 percent of the machines were either unutilized or underutilized. Accountability should be enforced and the corresponding disciplinary action taken.
During the past year, the DA has had its share of failures. But considering the serious challenges and constraints it faced, the DA has done reasonably well. Lessons learned from 2025 must now provide a better agriculture future for 2026.
Merry Christmas to you all!
The author is Agriwatch chair, former Secretary of presidential flagship programs and projects, and a former undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry. Contact agriwatch_phil@yahoo.com
