Rep. Jose Francisco Benitez (Neg. Occ., 3rd District) filed House Bill 4303 on Wednesday, August 31, that seeks to create agricultural trading centers called “Bagsakan ng Bayan Markets” in every province.
Agriculture is the backbone of the Philippine economy, being a major source of employment, Benitez said, pointing out that 27 percent of the country’s labor force are working in the sector.
However, the share of agriculture in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been declining over the years – from 27.4 percent in 1974 to just 9.7 percent in 2016, he said.
Farmers and fisherfolk are also the poorest segments of the population – at 31.6 percent poverty incidence among farmers in 2018, and 26.2 percent among fisherfolk, he said.
Recognizing this, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., in his first State of the Nation Address, committed to strengthen agriculture and pledged higher investments in infrastructure in the agricultural value chain to increase productivity and profits, Benitez pointed out.
This presidential pronouncement signals continuity in government policy to facilitate and enhance access of farmers and fisherfolk to markets, he said.
“We need an integrated system to bring agricultural commodities to wider markets, which requires adequate infrastructure and coordination at different points in the agricultural value chain’, Benitez said.
His bill introduces the hub-and-spoke model that directly connects producers or aggregators from local food terminals to a single apex location thereby creating agglomeration economies for agricultural commodities, he added.*