An urgent matter

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Looking at the list of 21 bills that the President and the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) have identified as priority measures being targeted for passage by July of this year, it is unfortunate to find that the National Land Use Act (NLUA) is again not among them.

It has been decades since the NLUA was first proposed. But Congress has never made this a priority.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has reported that the Philippines has 30 million hectares of land and inland waters, used by over 108 million people, and that, with the continuing drive for sufficient and nutritious food, shelter and sustainable livelihood, there is immense pressure on finite land and resources.

The NLUA seeks to institutionalize a holistic, rational, and comprehensive land-use and physical planning mechanism that will appropriately identify land-use and allocation patterns across the country.

FAO emphasized that improper land-use planning, coupled with the present sectoral approach to resource governance, results in unsustainable, uncoordinated, and unregulated land use. In turn, such a situation spurs conflicts over land use and management, between and among government agencies, local government units, the private sector and ordinary folk in rural and urban areas.

It cited a report from the Department of Economy, Planning and Development, which highlighted that improper land-use planning results in uncoordinated and unsustainable use of the country’s land, manifesting in uncontrolled development that encroaches on prime agricultural lands and other fragile areas, indiscriminate conversion of prime agricultural lands to non-agricultural uses affecting food security, development of poorly planned settlements that lack basic amenities including transport and other infrastructure facilities to enhance better communication and connectivity; and proliferation of informal settlements in unsafe and hazard-prone areas.

The FAO report likewise stressed that different versions of the NLUA have been filed in Congress since the 9th Congress in 1994, but not one bill has been transmitted to the Office of the President. For three consecutive state-of-the-nation addresses, former president Rodrigo Duterte has declared the NLUA as a priority legislation. Still, we don’t have such a law.

The most significant impact of inadequate land-use planning is on our agricultural sector.

A report from Statista noted that the slow growth of the agricultural sector in the Philippines has been attributed to the rampant conversion of arable land into residential subdivisions, industrial parks and resorts. Of the 30 million hectares of land, only one-third is used for agricultural activities.

According to the FAO, the Philippines had 14.74 million hectares of land devoted to agriculture in 1995. Last year, the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) reported that there are now only about 10.3 million hectares of agricultural land, roughly 3.1 million of which are considered irrigable, primarily for rice and corn.

In 2024, the country became the world’s largest rice importer, bringing in an unprecedented 4.7 million metric tons. This influx, it has been noted, resulted in devastating repercussions, including plummeting farmgate prices, catastrophic income losses for farmers and milling communities, and an unrelenting surge in land conversion.

The Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF) pointed out that, despite having considerably less land dedicated to rice cultivation of only 2.68 million hectares compared to Thailand’s 11.19 million hectares, Vietnam’s 7.12 million hectares, and Myanmar’s 6.48 million hectares, the Philippines is losing its prime rice lands at an alarming rate.

It said that an estimated 520,000 hectares of prime, irrigated lands capable of yielding 5.2 million tons of palay or 3.32 million tons of milled rice annually have been sacrificed to urban and commercial development. This unchecked land classification, facilitated by Sec. 20 of the Local Government Code and the inexcusable dormancy of the NLUA, is now unequivocally identified as the primary threat to the country’s food security, eclipsing even the impacts of climate change.

The IRDF added that had these lands remained agricultural, the Philippines would be a rice-surplus nation.

The area devoted to rice is in steady, steep decline. Our low rice yields are not helping. The same IRDF report noted that our average rice yield of 4.2 tons per hectare significantly lags behind those of leading produces like Vietnam which is at 6.16 tons per hectare and China’s 7.2 tons per hectare and this stems from systemic issues like inadequate government support, restricted access to high-quality hybrid seeds, insufficient fertilizer application, and a severe lack of mechanization and modern irrigation infrastructure.

On the other hand, with a high population growth rate of 1.53 percent in contrast to declining or moderate growth seen elsewhere in Asia, the demand for rice continues its relentless ascent, it added.

And the situation is not going to improve.

Based on the latest forecasts from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the FAO, the Philippines will be among the developing countries expected to substantially drive agricultural trade from 2025 to 2034, as it imports more agricultural products amid a growing economy and population.

The Senate economic planning office, in a report, said the Philippines’ trade deficit in agricultural goods has steadily increased from $740 million in 2006 to $11.8 billion in 2022, indicating that the country is importing more than it exports. About 64.4 percent of the trade deficit can be attributed to the top three imported agricultural products, namely wheat and meslin rice and oil-cake.

A report from the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department citing Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data revealed that the agricultural trade deficit was $11.7 billion in 2024, compared to $11.5 billion in 2023 and $11.8 billion in 2022, as against only $7 billion in 2018.

And while the agricultural trade deficit improved to $668 million last year, the PSA explained that the improvement is cyclical rather than structural, driven by temporary import restrictions, including the rice import freeze, and by favorable fruit exports.

There is nothing more urgent than ensuring that food is available to all in sufficient quantity and at affordable prices, while also ensuring that our farmers who produce these crops are earning well.

Once a net exporter of rice in the late ‘60s to ‘70s, the Philippines has become a consistent top rice importer. Roughly 30 percent of our farmers live below the poverty line. And our land area devoted to farming keeps shrinking. That says everything.

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