Background

The Rural Infrastructure and Agro-Industries Division (AGS) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO) commissioned SEARCA to undertake an appraisal of the institutional mandates for agribusiness support in Asia. The purpose of the appraisal was to identify and characterize the organizational models being introduced by the Ministries of Agriculture (MoAs) to carry out new functions related to agribusiness. The appraisal also aimed to provide sound guidance on how MoAs would become more effective and efficient service providers to support agribusiness and agro-industries development.

Project Components

The appraisal was conducted in two phases, namely:

1. Phase I - scoping survey which identified existing organizational structures with mandates related to agribusiness in all the countries of East, South, and Southeast Asia.
2. Phase II - in-depth country cases for several countries in Asia which analyzed the innovative organizational structures for agribusiness in terms of their mandates, functions, scope of services, institutional comparative advantage, and strengths and weaknesses.

The focus of the appraisal was on the specific sub-set of possible institutional arrangements, namely:

1. Agribusiness or agro-industry units within the ministry of agriculture.
2. Cross-ministerial committees that have mandates related to agribusiness or agro-industries.
3. Sectoral (or sub-sector) development programmes dealing with the agribusiness and agro-industrial sectors (e.g. cluster or value chain programmes).

 

Key Findings

During the FAO Outreach Event on Institutional Support for Inclusive Agribusiness and Agro-industries Development in Asia held on 6–7 November 2012 in Dusit Thani Hotel, Makati City, Philippines, Ms. Eva Gálvez, Agribusiness Economist of the FAO AGS Division, presented the following key findings from the in-depth case studies on six countries (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, and Vietnam):

• Quality and effectiveness of the institutional structure(s) with the mandate to support agribusiness development is important and cannot be taken for granted if countries want to enjoy a vibrant agribusiness sector.

• Promote an enabling agribusiness environment and ensure good governance.

• Organizational and enabling environment processes should go hand in hand and reinforce each other.

• Heterogeneous institutional development, but ample room for regional cross-learning.

• New principles and mechanisms have been designed and put in place (e.g. Indonesia and the Philippines) to improve intra- and inter-ministerial coordination through planning convergence (Philippines) and downstream off-farm consolidation (Indonesia).

• Forward-looking countries (e.g., Indonesia and Malaysia) have been able to adapt and attune faster to new functions (e.g., agro-value chains).

• FAO can help member countries to build their capacities to deliver traditional and new functions for agribusiness development and foster better agribusiness governance.

 

Related Article:

SEARCA Implements FAO-funded Study on Agribusiness in Asia

Strategic management of small-scale fisheries, a self-sustaining and producing sector, could be the Philippine’s vehicle to development.

This is according to Mr. Len Garces of the WorldFish Center during his ADSS presentation entitled Role of Small-scale Fisheries in Food Security and Livelihood in the Philippines on 8 February 2011. He asserted that small-scale fisheries can be the  country’s entry point to eradicating poverty and hunger

---

About 80-95% of the fish catch of small-scale fisheries are marketed locally, hence its importance in feeding the people in the rural areas and nearby cities/provinces. With the increasing population, this sector is challenged to produce sustainable quantity of fish, to meet the country’s fish consumption levels by 2020. Furthermore, small-scale fishery is a major source of livelihood to the coastal communities, with an estimated 1.37 million operators not including the ancillary services such as fish processing and marketing/trading, and a big contributor to the country’s economy.

However, small-scale fisheries is often underestimated because it is hard to measure, and according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is a dynamic and evolving sector. Because of this, municipal fishers remain in the most impoverished sectors. Moreover, small-scale capture fisheries are environmentally diverse and fishing is carried-out using many different fishing methods and under an array of organizational/institutional set-up. 

According to Mr. Garces, failures and limitations in governance and management seem to be the core of the issues and problems faced by small-scale fishers. These problems include the depletion and increasing conflict for resources, post-harvest losses, environmental degradation leading to decreasing biodiversity, and external drivers like climate change.

The WorldFish Center proposed management strategies aimed to deal with the above-mentioned problems and improve the state of municipal fisheries in the country. These included sustaining and improving the current regulations and policies, preserving and protecting the fisheries ecosystems and biodiversity, establishing appropriate infrastructures and developing new approaches like the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF).

They also suggested the continued capacity-building of local government units and the adoption and implementation of scale-up fisheries management schemes.

Lastly, the Center emphasized the importance of communication to develop the sector. They proposed the implementation of a comprehensive education program, improvement of information systems, and the transformation of research results into usable formats.

Mr. Garces said that if managed properly, small-scale fisheries would improve the lives and decrease the rate of poverty among fishing households, and increase the contribution of fisheries to the local and national economy.

Mr. Garces is the Regional Portfolio Coordinator and Research Fellow of the WorldFish Center’s Philippine Country Office. He has been with WorldFish since 1990 and has 20 years of extensive fisheries and aquaculture research experience in Southeast Asia. (Regine Joy P. Evangelista)

DISCLAIMER:
The point of view taken by this article is entirely that of the presenter's and does not reflect in any way, SEARCA’s position.

 

{jcomments on}