General Agricultural Situation

General Land Utilization

In 1991, the total area of agricultural land utilized was 10 million hectares. This was distributed among the temporary and permanent crops, pasture land and forest. The temporary crops such as rice and corn made up 53 percent (5.3 million hectares) of agricultural land. This was followed by permanent crop such as coconuts and other tree crops, which occupy 42 percent (4.2 million hectares). The balance is equally divided among forest growth, idle and other land. 

Farm System/Structure

A mixture of small, medium and large farms characterizes Philippine agriculture. 

Majority of the farms in the country are small farms averaging about 2 hectares, owned or occupied and managed by farm households whose activities range from subsistence agriculture to commercial production.

Farm households on small farms generally undertake farming. Two-thirds of all farms in 1991 were no larger than three hectares. Ninety percent of all farms were no more than five hectares. 

Over a period of 30 years ending in 1991, the proportion of small farms has been expanding. This can be partly explained by the agrarian reform programs of the government. Under the current program implementing the comprehensive agrarian reform law, a farm household cannot own a farm larger than five hectares.

A typical farming system is planted to major crops, with rice, corn and coconut as common base crops, and a few heads of livestock and poultry. 

The number of farm parcels  under cultivation in 1991 totaled 8.9 million. The average number of parcels per farm was estimated to be 2 parcels with an average size of 1.1 hectares.

Small farms principally produce rice, corn, coconut and many other crops. Prior to Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), there were large plantations of rubber, coffee, oil palm, cacao, banana, pineapple, etc. Contract growing schemes operate in corn seeds, banana, tomato, cucumber, oil palm, asparagus and broiler chicken.   

Agriculture and Philippine Development

The slow growth of agriculture since the 1980s can be attributed primarily to the under- performance of the crop sub sector in Philippine agriculture. 

The agricultural sector, which includes forestry and fishery, is a major foundation of the Philippine economy. This fact alone explains the urgent need to transform agriculture into a modern, dynamic and competitive sector. A sustained expansion of the national economy requires sustained growth and high productivity in the agricultural sector.

The sector's contribution to the economy has been substantial, amounting to P549.37 billion or 15 percent of gross domestic product  (GDP) in 2001 at current prices. But based on constant 1985 prices, the sector contributed P197.73 billion or 20 percent to the countrys GDP. It registered a growth rate of 4 percent in 2001. The growth was mainly due to the expansion of the poultry, fishery, and sugarcane pineapple sub-sectors.   

The 2001 population of the Philippines numbered 78 million people. Population growth rate is about 2.36 percent annually.

About half of the population lives in the rural areas and two-thirds depend on agriculture for their livelihood.   

In terms of employment, about 37 percent of the employed persons in the country in 2001 is engaged in agricultural activities. Workers in rice, corn, coconut farms, landless farmworkers and fishers comprise the majority.

Almost half of the rural population in 2000 is considered poor (47.4 percent) and a disproportionate number live in the least developed regions -- Bicol (Region 5), Central Mindanao (Region 12), and the Autonomous Region Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).  

The severity of rural poverty is greatest among the rural workers consisting of landless farm workers and small farmers. When compared to urban areas, poverty in the countryside declined at a much slower pace because growth was not sustained and unemployment remained high.

The social fortune of rural workers is intimately linked to the prevailing conditions in Philippine agriculture.  From an agricultural leader in the 60s and 70s, the Philippines has deteriorated to an agricultural straggler in the 80s and 90s, compared to its Asian neighbors.  

Due to inefficiencies, the Philippine dream of becoming self-sufficient in food, if not a net exporter of agricultural products, is becoming dimmer. The country is substantially importing its food needs like rice, corn, beef, pork, poultry, fruits, and fishery products.

Not only is the countrys food security now highly dependent on agricultural imports, the situation is also driving the Filipino small farmers and farm workers out of business or employment, which is already suffering from poor productivity, not solely of their own making. 

Even then, competition from cheaper agricultural imports actually highlights the fact that the Philippines is not as efficient as the other leading Asian countries and theres no reason it should not be.

The challenge is how to make smallholder agriculture more entrepreneurial and to compete head to head with the countrys Asian neighbors at the same time that it lifts itself out of the morass of poverty. 

The Decent Work Deficits in the Agricultural Sector

Opportunities for and Conditions of Work 

Landless workers have lesser opportunities for employment and livelihood than other types of workers in agricultural farms owing to their limited access to land, even as land reform is going on. Their chances as land reform beneficiaries, given past record of government in implementing the program, is as low as can be.

Employment in agriculture is also dwindling. Not enough jobs are being generated either in the sector or in the whole economy to absorb the unemployed and the new entrants to the labor force.  

Hours of work in agriculture are lower than the national average or when compared to industry and services, which indicate underemployment of employed persons in agriculture, even as the share of wage and salary earners to total employment is increasing. Such lesser hours, coupled with lower wages in employment or net returns from farming do not allow employment and livelihood in agriculture to earn adequate income that can be called decent, which in fact forms an important facet of income poverty that is prevalent in the rural areas and in the agriculture sector. Whether from wage employment or income from production, the amount of income mostly hovers around the poverty threshold income. 

The type of jobs more prevalent in agriculture are seasonal and contractual, which further reduces opportunities for decent work and incomes to come by. 

Unacceptable Work: Child Labor

Overall, in the Philippines, the incidence of child labor has increased from its level of 3.58 million in 1995 to 4.02 million in 2001. Moreover, its proportion to total children aged 5-17 slightly increased from 16 percent in 1995 to 16.2 percent in 2001. In profile, the Filipino working child is: a male elementary grader age 10 years old who usually live in rural areas, engaged in agriculture on a seasonal basis and unpaid; four out of ten, he works during night time; six out of ten, he is exposed to hazardous environment.

More than half the working children ages 5-17 were engaged in agriculture, forestry and hunting; seven out of ten are boys; six out of ten are unpaid workers in their own household-operated farm or business; one in every two work in the farm; about six in every ten are exposed to physical hazards and one out of ten to chemical hazards; seven out of ten suffer from work-related injuries and illness.

Equity in Work: The Gender Question and Work-Life Balance

The gender gap is narrowing, fast in some respects and slowly in others.

Wage employment of women in agriculture are growing the fastest and their share in wage employment is increasing

Women in agriculture work for lesser hours in paid employment than men but women work for much longer hours at unpaid work at home.

In farming activities, the wage differential between the sexes for all crops category is slowly narrowing down but generally women still receive lesser pay than men. By crop category, however, the wage gap is widening in rice, corn and sugarcane.

Overall, in terms of landless households: 6 out of ten were men-headed while 4 out of ten were women-headed.  However, of the households owning land, both sexes share the wealth equally.  When it comes to ownership of agricultural lands by households, there are more women-headed households who own land (26.5%) than men-headed ones (24.8%)

In financial services, gauged from the Grameen Replication Program, almost all the beneficiaries (97%) are women.  However, when it comes to holders of land emancipation patents (EPs) and certificates of land ownerships (CLOAs), only 1 out of ten holders of EPs are women and only 2 out of ten holders of CLOAs are women.

On balancing work and family life, studies show that the Filipino family in general remains traditional but it is changing as the other institutions supporting it are changing too.

Decision-making between spouses are still shared, and the nuclear and well as the extended family are still consulted in major decisions.

In agriculture family togetherness is weakening due to the need for paid work to support the family. However, this apartness in lesser in degree in rural communities than in urban ones.

A balance work-family life arrangement, because of the nature of work in farms, is greater in degree in rural areas and in agricultural work than in urban areas and industrial work. Children, however, are going out of the community and country to work, often in order to supplement family income.

Productive Work: Access to Support Services

Credit and loans for agriculture is relatively accessible but not adequate. The rural poor access credit mainly from informal sources at relatively small amounts.

Farm-to-market roads and provincial roads are lacking and half of these are in poor conditions and deteriorating, which affect the price of agricultural products and, consequently, the incomes of farmers and farm workers. According to perception surveys, access to roads favor the rich.

Eight out of ten rural villages have access to electricity.  Access to telephones are growing fast but only a little less than four out of one hundred have landline telephones. And this is lesser in the rural areas. Cellular phone-use is increasing, though, and its growth rate is moving very fast, at 45% per annum between 1996 and 1999.

Agricultural extension services remain limited.

Security and Stability at Work: Job Security and Social Protection

Security of job or land tenure is guaranteed by the Constitution and by law, both for formal sector workers in business establishments and for farmers and workers in farms and forests. However, excessive legalism bugs implementation and weakens the exercise of the right to security of tenure while globalization tends to derogate the implementation of labor standards including security of tenure in establishments as well as in farms

A variety of social protection schemes exists in the Philippines that are publicly or privately funded and managed. The country is still far from the objective of providing social protection for all. In general, these programs are neither cohesive nor congruent, which reduce their impact for the purpose that they have been created.

Social assistance is extensive and covers a wide array of public beneficiaries. Studies show that social assistance is skewed in favor of the non-poor; it is cheap and often free but its quality is low. It has deteriorated overtime.

Social insurance coverage is mostly limited to the formal sector and income earning members because of its contributory character. Non-regularity of jobs and income thus impinge on its financial viability. Premium for public schemes and compliance to its mandatory membership are low, further contributing to its shaky financial viability and sustainability. Governance and management while government-controlled allows for tripartite representation but are rather weak in administration. Questionable investment decisions have caused severe drain in their reserves; further the shaky economic conditions affect investment decisions and income. Sector-specific and area-specific public schemes supplement the institutional schemes but their source of funding creates problems of sustainability, which are also affected by prevailing economic adjustment problems. Private social insurance schemes offered in the market are mostly unaffordable by the majority of the poor population. Microinsurance schemes have been established mostly by NGOs and some in cooperation with the public and private sectors; however, most have not gone beyond their piloting or model building stages and their financial viability and sustainability, thus also their replicability, need to be further studied and strengthened.

Social protection in collective bargaining agreements offer a variety of schemes whose benefits are usually on top of publicly-established, formal and institutional schemes, but while often adequate, their coverage is as limited as the negligible coverage of CBAs in the country.

Occupational health and safety practices have deteriorated over time. Four out of ten accidents happen in agriculture. Exposure to chemicals remain the most preponderant health hazard in agriculture. Overlapping health and safety agencies contribute to inefficiencies in the management of occupational health and safety services. Awareness is also inadequate

Dignity at Work: Promoting Social Dialogue

The legal and socio-economic basis of freedom of association and collective bargaining as well as multi-sectoral representation are also discussed extensively in Chapter 4. These frame the exercise of organized social dialogue in the country.

Social Dialogue finds extensive practice in the Philippines, due partly to liberal and progressive laws that promote tripartism, collective bargaining popular participation in development and social negotiations, at the workplaces, in government and in industries.

A range of social dialogue mechanisms exists:  from mere provision of information, through various types of negotiations, and sectoral representation in tripartite bodies, legislative assemblies and national summits, meetings and conferences.

While representativity and representativeness of social organizations are sometimes raised as questions that can whittle away both gains and process of social dialogue, the fact remains that bilateral, trilateral and multi-party negotiations help shape public policy on social and economic development.

Although trade union density is low and even marginal in the country, the density of peasant organizations and civil society groups in the Philippines may be among the highest in this part of the world, contributing to substantial exercise of the right to freedom of association and free collective bargaining.  Still, the efficiency and effectivity of social dialogue are sometimes put into question.

Government Initiative and Decent Work in Agriculture

Philippine government initiatives and interventions for major social programs such as Decent Work require legal basis.

Present social and economic legislations are generally progressive. For instance, the 1987 Constitution being a by-product of the People Power 1986 Revolution is heavily anchored on democratization, human rights and social justice. Existing statutory laws such as the Labor Code of the Philippines (LCP), Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), Agriculture & Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), Cooperative Code and the Local Government Code translate the constitutional values of equity, productivity, peoples organization and participation into programs and policies.

However, all these legal instruments have their respective loopholes and weaknesses that have been the result of compromises in the process of formulation and enactment. These weaknesses have been used time and again to thwart the full realization of the abovementioned constitutional values.

At any rate, these statutory laws are used by government as the basis for the formulation of  implementing policies and for designing social and economic programs and projects such as employment generation, social protection, agrarian reform, agricultural modernization, local governance including the allocation of budget for these.

The core programs of government are contained in the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP). The MTPDP is a document that contains the governments socio-economic policies and goals to be implemented for a period of four years. For every Administration of government, a new MTPDP is formulated to reflect its priorities and programs as generally announced through the incumbent Presidents State of the Nation Address or SONA.

Governments performance in the implementation of programs and projects is a mixture of successes and failures. Policy and program implementation has its own problems and weaknesses.

Sometimes these weaknesses arise from the statutory law itself. At other times, it is a problem of political will for implementing programs that could affect vested interests such as the aggressive implementation of agrarian reform or the removal of protectionist policies in the economy. Frequently, it is a problem of inefficiency on the part of the bureaucracy as shown by overlapping roles and responsibilities in the area of agricultural modernization, occupational health and safety and government devolution. Or it could be a problem of graft and corruption. Often, it is simply a problem of budget deficit and poor interval revenue collection.

Peoples Movements and Civil Society and Decent Work

Based on their experiences, the role of POs-Coops-NGOs may be summed up as follows:

Creating public awareness and crystallizing the political will for Decent Work.

Social legislations such as labor standards and agrarian reform have usually been results of, or responses to, concerted actions and specific rural workers demands at different periods of time.

The POs-Coops-NGOs have been at the forefront of catalyzing this kind of action to articulate public demand from below.  

Organization and education, emanating at the grassroots level, are powerful tools for peoples empowerment especially when accompanied by popular mobilization and action.

Ensuring public accountability.

POs-Coops-NGOs provide a valuable source of feedback on the implementation of Decent Work programs, given POs-Coops-NGOs direct link in the communities they work with. Farmer-beneficiaries and other disadvantaged sectors targeted by programs can freely air out their criticisms and suggestions because of the mutual trust that has been established between these groups and their respective constituencies over the years.

Providing direct support services.

POs-Coops-NGO experiences in development work and their non-bureaucratic character could come in handy for the development of a responsive delivery mechanisms. 

Piloting innovative approaches and strategies.

The size and flexibility of POs-Coops-NGOs allow ample space for innovation and local adaptation. They can experiment with new ways and approaches in carrying out a program. The ability to be flexible and innovative is important in implementing Decent Work programs where peoples participation is a must.

Bridging government agencies and rural communities.

The ability of POs-Coops-NGOs to work closely with the rural poor and their recognition by the government as partners in the development process provide these groups a unique role in acting as link or bridge for both parties.

The ILO and Decent Work in Philippine Agriculture

Having been a member of the ILO since 1948, the Philippines has ratified 30 Conventions, 28 of which are in force. The ILO considers the performance of the Philippines as below average, when reckoned against all ILO Member States, but better than most of its Asian neighbors

The ILO noted five kinds of deficits on the part of the Philippines when it comes to the adoption and implementation of the various ILO conventions which are universally considered as the minimum standards for all member-states. These deficits revolve around the issues of non-ratification, inconsistencies, weak application, child labor and limited legal and social protection of overseas Filipino workers.

The Philippines was chosen as one of the pilot countries where Decent Work will be implemented through the Action Programme for Decent Work. These action programme consist of four (4) sectoral responses and four (4) integrated responses all geared towards the implementation of the Decent Work both as a goal and as a program.

Even then, there is further need to sharpen the decent work program in the agricultural and rural sectors.