issues in crop production

• The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,107 islands in Southeast Asia with a total population of 115M and an annual growth rate of 1.3% (2022)
• Poverty is mostly in rural areas, with half of 112M Filipinos living in rural areas (80% of country's poor)

  
• The Philippines has a total land area of 30M hectares, with 15.9M hectares being non-alienable and non-disposable, and 14.1M hectares being disposable

  
• 11M hectares are agricultural lands, with 9M considered prime
• Main Goal of Crop Production

  Food Security, to attain national self-sufficiency
• 6.65M hectares are needed to produce 4 metric tons per Ha, which would result in 21M tons of Palay to feed 123M Filipinos
• The cost of production must be brought down and the income earning capacity of the people must be raised
• Food production cannot keep up with the immense population growth, as the Philippines' population expansion rate was 1.4% in 2019 while the agriculture sector grew by only 0.5% in late 2020
• Climate change is a threat to agricultural growth, affecting productivity and prices through changing rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, increasing frequency and intensity of typhoons, occurrence of drought, and sea level rise
• The Philippines was ranked 6th in the most vulnerable country to climate change
• 66% of the poor are in agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector, with poverty incidence in the rural areas being 68% compared to only 34% in the urban areas
• The poorest of the poor are the indigenous peoples, small-scale farmers who cultivate land received through agrarian reform, landless workers, fishers, people in upland areas and women
• The highest poverty incidence is found among corn farmers (41%), rice and corn workers (36%), sugarcane farm workers, coconut farm workers, forestry workers (33%), and fishers (31%) in the coastal waters
• The average age of Filipino farmers is 57, with daily wage rates of P176.44 for males and P169.27 for females
• Smallholder agriculture in rural areas is dominated, with lack of access to markets, credits, and technology, as well as poor infrastructure
• Declining labor productivity is brought about by intertwining technical, social, political and environmental factors, including low investment in agriculture, poor infrastructure, slow labor absorption, slow diversification of rural income, and monoculture farming
• World price spikes jeopardize food security and threaten livelihoods of smallholder farmers
• Land conversion shifts production pressure to marginal uplands with shallow top soil, infertile soil, soil disturbances, lack of access to irrigation, and reduction of farm size, leading to production inefficiency
• 78% of farms are less than 3 hectares, and family farm income may not be attained
• Declining interest among youth in agriculture due to fast industrialization, with many preferring industrialized work over planting crops
• Rapid environmental degradation, including decreasing arable lands, overgrazing, waterlogging and salt built up in soils, groundwater depletion, droughts, and loss of biodiversity due to habitat loss and extinction of species
• The stagnant and declining yields of major crops such as rice and wheat can be ultimately linked to declining investments in agriculture
• Solution


  Produce Food and Address Poverty, through Staple Food Commodities to ensure food security and High Value Crops to generate jobs and foreign earnings