September 8, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Division of Agriculture (DA) stated the backlog in farm-to-market roads (FMR) has reached near P300 billion, depriving the nation of essential infrastructure that enables meals producers to move items effectively, cut back potential wastage and increase earnings.
Regardless of the backlog, the DA is going through a discount in its proposed FMR price range subsequent 12 months on account of restricted fiscal spending, with the federal government prioritizing different key applications for agricultural growth.
The DA has already acquired a complete FMR price range request of round P286.54 billion as of end-August, knowledge obtained by The STAR confirmed. The quantity pertains to validated potential FMRs within the nation however stay unfunded.
The estimated quantity is enough to assemble 20,483.95 kilometers of FMR nationwide, equal to a mean price of almost P14 million per kilometer.
Area 11 tops the record with essentially the most unfunded FMR tasks at almost P65.5 billion for 7,044.2 kilometers, adopted by Area 2 at P36.51 billion for two,707.7 kilometers.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. famous that the whole FMR backlog nationwide is round 36,000 kilometers.
This 12 months, the DA has a record-high price range of P23.24 billion to assemble some 1,541 kilometers of FMR. The quantity was nearly a fifth greater than final 12 months’s P19.6-billion allocation.
Nonetheless, the DA is now going through a minimum of a 30-percent discount in its proposed FMR price range subsequent 12 months which is pegged at P16 billion beneath the 2026 Nationwide Expenditure Program (NEP).
The proposed price range is 30 % decrease than the P23.18 billion within the 2025 NEP and 31 % decrease than the ultimate allocation beneath this 12 months’s Basic Appropriations Act.
“The (Division of Finances and Administration) requested to decrease the price range for FMR to make sure that the price range of all departments for 2026 can be accommodated,” Tiu Laurel informed The STAR.
Agriculture assistant secretary and spokesman Arnel de Mesa informed The STAR that the DA proposed a P28-billion funding for its FMR subsequent 12 months to speed up the discount of the infrastructure backlog.
“It was simply in regards to the restricted fiscal house. The funding for some objects like FMR had been lowered however the price range for different objects like rice elevated. It’s a give-and-take factor,” De Mesa stated.
The DA’s complete proposed price range subsequent 12 months is at P176.7 billion, greater than this 12 months’s P155.6 billion.
The discount within the FMR price range was additionally a results of the upper assured fund of P30 billion beneath the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).
Beneath the regulation, the federal government should supply the deficiency in rice tariff collections – ought to it fall under P30 billion – from the DA price range to make sure the annual appropriation for RCEF.
Pundits and trade stakeholders have earlier identified that this will likely add burden to the federal government’s fiscal house with different applications of the DA struggling simply to salvage the funding for RCEF particularly since present rice tariff collections plunged following the discount in tariffs final 12 months.
The DA is now proposing to legislate the funding for FMR to protect its annual appropriation and make sure that the backlog can be considerably addressed.
Tiu Laurel stated the DA is initially an annual legislated funding of P20 billion to P25 billion.
At a minimal price range of P20 billion yearly, the 36,000-kilometer FMR backlog can be accomplished in round 27 years based mostly on a mean price of P15 million per kilometer estimated beneath the federal government’s nationwide FMR community plan 2023-2028.
“Farm-to-market roads are the spine of meals safety. They convey down prices for shoppers, increase earnings for producers and unlock progress throughout rural economies,” Tiu Laurel stated.
“We can’t go away our farmers and fisherfolk stranded on the farm gate. This laws lays not simply bodily roads, however a stronger basis for meals safety, fairness, and nationwide growth,” he added.
