Time for an AgriCom
I’ve long believed that our dismal failure in agriculture is not due to lack of technological know-how, natural endowments, or human power. We’ve always had these basic elements needed to attain a dynamic farm and fisheries sector as seen in our now more prosperous neighbors. But it is in governing and managing the sector where we have miserably failed. So what governance and institutional fixes should we pursue?
Fourteen years ago, the late Dr. Eliseo Ponce, long-time Visayas State University president and a former Department of Agriculture (DA) insider who headed its Bureau of Agricultural Research for five years, thoroughly examined the agriculture bureaucracy and recommended institutional reforms to enable the modernization of the sector. Most of his observations and recommendations on the DA’s structure, functions, and budget remain valid today. He listed DA’s shortcomings as: (1) overcentralization, (2) budget instability and politicization, (3) unclear communication lines, (4) fragmentation and weak coordination, (5) lack of clear organizational framework, (6) weak technical and managerial capacity, (7) authority without accountability, and (8) graft and corruption and massive waste of public resources. Space limitations cannot do justice to the richness of his insights and recommendations, but I highlight below two of the many key reforms that he pushed for.
First, shift from commodity-oriented to function-oriented budgeting. This has highlighted the undue share of rice, making up over half, even though its contribution to agricultural GDP is less than a fifth. He argued that the DA budget would be better defined according to its core functions, namely: (1) policy, planning, monitoring, and evaluation; (2) standards-setting, regulation, inspection, and quarantine; (3) research and development; (4) information, communication, and supervision of (devolved) extension; and (5) international relations. He wrote: “Efforts toward improvement of commodities should be undertaken through its regular functional line bureaus like the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI), Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), etc., rather than through specialized ad hoc commodity programs whose leaders had in the past been endowed with authority and command over substantial resources, without corresponding accountability.” And because under legally mandated devolution, local government units must do the “rowing” as the DA limits itself to “steering,” he stressed that “a distinct and significant part of the DA budget (must) be devoted to supporting LGUs, especially on capacity-building. Only through this may the DA truly work through the LGUs, and thereby be more responsive to the needs of its clients on the ground.”
Second, eliminate conflict of interest. Regulatory functions have traditionally been spread across various DA bureaus and attached agencies, such as the BPI, BAI, BFAR, Philippine Coconut Authority, Sugar Regulatory Administration, National Meat Inspection Service, and Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority. But the core functions listed earlier are also spread across these various commodity agencies. Agencies tasked with regulation must not be involved in activities that they themselves regulate. Ponce recommended consolidating all of the DA’s regulatory functions into one apex regulatory body, limiting the various bureaus to their developmental functions. This proposal has traditionally met strong opposition from concerned agencies, for understandable reasons. “But the government can put a stop to all the charade, and say enough is enough,” he wrote. “The interest of the people must take precedence over self-preservation and welfare of a few.”
Ponce noted past efforts to reform the agriculture bureaucracy, starting from a bill for an Agriculture Bureaucracy Restructuring Act filed to accompany the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997 (Republic Act No. 8435), but which never saw the light of day. Former president Joseph Estrada issued Executive Order No. 338 reorganizing the DA shortly before stepping down in 2001 as a transition until Congress legislates more fundamental DA reform. Unfortunately, the department under the Arroyo administration showed no interest in implementing the Estrada EO and institutional reforms were stymied by changes in the DA leadership. No fundamental bureaucratic reform in the DA has been pursued since, but only piecemeal changes, and rather than rationalize and streamline, it has instead evolved despite the mandated devolution of its work into a top-heavy organization with 13 undersecretaries and 14 assistant secretaries!
It’s time to follow the example of the Education Commission or EdCom and form a high-level Agriculture Commission or AgriCom that will take a long hard look at fixing our dysfunctional agriculture bureaucracy. It is holding the sector and the entire country back.
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cielito.habito@gmail.com
