MESSAGE ERNESTO M. PERNIA, PhD Socioeconomic Planning Secretary National Economic and Development Authority The Future of Philippine Agriculture Under a Changing Climate: Policies, Investments and Scenarios December 21, 2018 | 9:00 AM | EDSA Shangri-La Hotel

Distinguished guests, 

Colleagues in government, 

Members of the academia,

Good morning to all of you.

It is my great pleasure to welcome everyone to today’s launch of the book entitled “The Future of Philippine Agriculture Under a Changing Climate: Policies, Investments and Scenarios.” 

We all know that development in the Philippine agriculture sector plays a vital role in inclusive growth. Agriculture in our country generates employment for about a third (or 31.5 percent) of our labor force, and is key to providing raw materials to the manufacturing and service sectors. 

However, environmental hazards aggravated by climate change continue to pose significant risks to agricultural output and growth. In fact, as cited in the book, yearly losses between 2000 and 2016 include production losses and damage to farm equipment, and irrigation and road facilities of PhP17.37 billion. This is equivalent to about 1.8 percent of the sector’s yearly average Gross Value-Added (GVA). 

Climate change is only about to get worse with recent rapid increases in temperature. If we do nothing, this will impede our target of increasing agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. 

The policy recommendations in this book are timely. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming warns that a host of climate-related risks—from sea level rise, to food and water supplies, security, and health issues—will be worse if global temperatures rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

We hope policymakers and development planners find this book useful, as it provides the much-needed knowledge base to support decision- and policy-making on agriculture, climate change, and food security. 

Moreover, the findings of the book will help enable the agriculture sector to adequately perform its role as a key pillar in the country’s pursuit of inclusive growth, poverty reduction, and sustainable development. 

Along this line, the book’s policy recommendations will definitely be taken into account when we update the Philippine Development Plan next year, as well as in the formulation of the subsequent development plans.

Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the authors who contributed to this informative and stimulating book, and to its editors, Mercedita Sombilla and Mark Rosegrant. 

Congratulations as well to the International Food Policy Research Institute, or IFPRI, for collaborating with NEDA on this policy study. I look forward for more partnerships with IFPRI, and other research institutions and authors, to continue this quest for knowledge that will catalyze and unlock more opportunities to make the agriculture sector more productive and resilient.

I would also like to proudly share that last December 6, NEDA officials—Undersecretaries, Assistant Secretaries, and regional and staff Directors—unanimously approved and adopted the NEDA Declaration on Climate Change, which provides a concrete policy framework that will guide and enable NEDA to implement our Climate Change Strategy. 

The NEDA Climate Change Strategy is a four-part initiative that will be implemented from 2018 to 2021 to catalyze behavioral change among NEDA employees. With this Strategy, we aim to reduce the agency’s energy and water consumption, and per capita greenhouse gas emissions, while maximizing productivity of our agency. 

While this may be considered small in scale, we believe that influencing behavior at the individual level leads to more long-term positive impacts. Micro efforts lead to macro effects. 

Typically, in principle, it is easier to implicitly shame individuals who don’t toe the line than countries can do. 

We hope to encourage other government agencies and stakeholders to do the same.  

Thank you, congratulations, and enjoy the holidays ahead.