(For reasons of timeliness, two columns on ASEAN food security will preempt the scheduled second part of Mr. Villegas’ AI series which will resume on June 25. — Ed.)
A recent poll indicated that the Filipino public would like the Marcos Jr. Administration to assign the highest priority to food security, together with healthcare and infrastructure. Considering that a major reason for the high cost of food in the Philippines can be attributed to poor infrastructure such as farm-to-market roads, irrigation, and post-harvest facilities, one can conclude that addressing the shortage and poor state of physical infrastructures in the countryside can contribute directly to food security.
It is, therefore, worth celebrating that on May 26 to 27, the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ASEAN BAC), through its chairperson Joey Concepcion, presented to the 10 ASEAN leaders (plus Timor-Leste) a plan for stronger collaboration in food and agriculture. We should rejoice that while there are parts of the developed world that are repudiating closer economic ties among countries by raising very high tariffs, we in the ASEAN are ever looking for ways to foster closer economic ties.
Mr. Concepcion highlighted the importance of the ASEAN Food Security Alliance (AFSA), which will serve as a platform for regional cooperation in agriculture and food systems. The most important objective of this alliance is the combatting of mass poverty and the enhancement of food resilience by harnessing the strengths of the leading agribusiness enterprises of the ASEAN.
It is notable that through the efforts of private businesspeople and entrepreneurs like Joey Concepcion and other members of the ASEAN BAC, it is the private sector that is taking the lead in driving collaborative and scalable solutions that build resilience, reduce hunger, and promote inclusive growth across the ASEAN region. Especially in the field of agribusiness, it is desirable that the private business sector assume the role of the engine of growth, with the Government providing the indispensable public infrastructure and regulatory framework.
Among its agribusiness peers in the ASEAN (namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam), the Philippines is the most in need of assistance because it has the highest rate of poverty (22% of the population and 16% of households) compared to Malaysia which has 0.1%, Thailand’s 0.6%, and Vietnam’s 4.2%.
Our claim that the Philippines has one of the highest GDP growth rates in the Indo-Pacific region, though accurate, sounds hollow when we consider our scandalously high rate of mass poverty. Given our population of more than 110 million people, we should be ashamed of the fact that close to 20 million Filipinos are going to bed hungry every day, especially children whose brains are consequently being damaged permanently because of undernourishment. Mass poverty in the Philippines is principally due to the underdevelopment of the agricultural sector, the Achilles’ heel of the economy.
It is also not a coincidence that the three ASEAN countries cited above with very low poverty incidences have been very successful in developing their respective agricultural sectors.
Next to improving the lot of the millions of small farmers in the Philippines, the second most effective way of reducing poverty is to improve the viability and profitability of the micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs). That is why it is laudable that there are parallel efforts of the ASEAN BAC to support MSMEs to revitalize a digital platform for the Philippines’ previous legacy project, the ASEAN Mentorship for Entrepreneurs Network. The enhanced platform will strengthen mentor-to-mentor engagement while also advancing the two other critical pillars for MSMEs: access to money and markets.
Since 2024, the ASEAN BAC has begun organizing a coalition of agribusiness companies to explore regional partnerships, with several collaborations already underway with Malaysian counterparts. Engagements are also ongoing with stakeholders through the embassies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Thailand, while discussions with a Cambodian farm association and an agricultural company are in progress.
One of the key outcomes from the summit in Malaysia is the partnership between ASEAN BAC Philippines and Malaysia Digital Economy Corp. (MDEC). Facilitated by Go Negosyo, the entrepreneurship advocacy group founded by Joey Concepcion, the collaboration will promote the adoption of digital agricultural technologies across ASEAN. The goal is to empower farmers and “agripreneurs” with innovative tools, support sustainable practices, and drive digital transformation in the agribusiness sector which encompasses the whole value chain from farming to post-harvest, cold storage, logistics and transport, food processing and all the way to retailing.
In the Philippines, for example, farming accounts only for 10% of GDP while agribusiness represents 30% of GDP. This initiative of ASEAN BAC should make it clear that progress in any sector, especially in agribusiness, should be driven primarily by the private sector, with the State playing the important support role of building the necessary public infrastructure (farm to market roads, etc.) and providing the regulatory framework (monetary, fiscal, and trade policies).
Replicating the initiatives of Go Negosyo at a more modest level, a private think tank called the Center for Food and Agribusiness, which is linked to the University of Asia and the Pacific in Manila, is organizing an Agribusiness Roadshow bringing some 45 Philippine “agripreneurs,” large and medium-scale, to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam on June 24 to 27 to meet their counterpart Vietnamese agribusiness executives.
The purpose of the road show is for the Philippine delegation to learn business practices at the various levels of the agribusiness value chain — from farming to post-harvest, cold chain, logistics, manufacturing, and retailing — which Vietnam has developed more advanced technology and business knowhow than their counterpart in the Philippines.
Just as an indication of how far advanced the Vietnamese are in the field of agribusiness, the total annual agribusiness exports of Vietnam to the world, especially China, amounts to $62.4 billion compared to the measly $7.75 billion of the Philippines. An even more impressive accomplishment of Vietnam (which explains why it surpassed the Philippines in GDP per capita four years ago) is that its total exports to the world amounted to $424 billion in 2024 compared to our $73 billion.
Already legendary is the way Vietnam became, in record time, the second largest coffee exporter in the world, displacing Colombia in less than two decades. It did this by having a most effective program in which the State played a major role in helping coffee farmers significantly improve their productivity.
It is no surprise then that the UA&P’s Center for Food and Agribusiness, in a more modest bilateral effort, decided to bring an important Philippine business delegation to Ho Chi Minh to foster closer cooperation between the two ASEAN countries in trade, investment, technology transfer, and research collaboration in the field of agribusiness.
(To be continued.)
Bernardo M. Villegas has a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard, is professor emeritus at the University of Asia and the Pacific, and a visiting professor at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. He was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.
