Building resilience in Phl agriculture

Resilience has become a buzzword today amid concerns brought about by the climate crisis. A quick Google search would define resilience as springing back into shape or withstanding or recovering quickly after an incidence.

- By JASPER EMMANUEL TUPAS

In any case, at its core, resilience measures the capacity of something or someone to bounce back after a setback, whether anticipated or unexpected.

And for Filipino farmers and fishermen, resilience is an expensive concept to afford. For the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), building resilience in agriculture and fisheries communities is worth every penny.

The Philippines is FAO's seventh largest project delivery in the Asia Pacific region with some 20 projects amounting to a total of $43 million this year.

Some of the significant areas of cooperation covered by the projects are agro-entrepreneurship, sustainable watershed management, climate change adaptation and social protection.

The FAO noted that agriculture and fisheries remain the "most concerning" economic sector as it faces myriad of challenges from production decline to rising poverty incidence.

In the Philippines, the international agency aims to contribute in resolving agriculture and fisheries problems such as low farm productivity, high production costs, fragmented value chain, inequitable income distribution and climate change woes.

FAO representative in the Philippines Lionel Dabbadie noted that agriculture and fisheries are "emerging" as a priority sector of the Philippine government after over a decade of continuous decline as highlighted in President Marcos' State of the Nation Address and series of policy reforms at the Department of Agriculture.