The Federation of Free Farmers has criticized the current administration for failing to increase agricultural output enough to match population growth.
Chairman Leonardo Montemayor noted that both farming and fishing sectors have remained stagnant despite rising budgets from the Department of Agriculture.
Even with 60% of the agriculture budget directed at rice production, yields have risen only from 4.11 to 4.14 tons per hectare between 2022 and 2025, far below the targeted five tons.
Rice imports have climbed to roughly 30 percent of domestic demand since 2022, compared to under ten percent a decade earlier, making the country the world’s largest rice importer.
Tariff cuts under a recent executive order have not lowered retail prices and have reduced farmers’ earnings, discouraging domestic production and encouraging further trade liberalization with partners such as the European Union, Canada, and Chile.
Rice farmers have reportedly seen a real‑term income loss of about fifty billion pesos per year since the Rice Tariffication Law was enacted in 2019.
Commercial fishing vessels are entering municipal waters reserved for local fishers, a problem that has stalled in court over a 15‑kilometer closed zone near shorelines.
The Department of Agrarian Reform has been slow to act on illegal land conversions, unresolved disputes, and violence against activists, leaving landless farmers without a clear path to land ownership after the 2014 deadline.
Several promises made in a prior State of the Nation Address—including curbing agricultural profiteering, planting fifteen million coconut trees by 2025, and amending the Coconut Industry and Trust Fund Act—have yet to be realized.
