This Review of Agricultural Policies: The Philippines is one of a series of reviews of national agricultural policies undertaken by the OECD’s Committee for Agriculture (CoAg). It was initiated in response to a request from Mr. Segfredo Serrano, Undersecretary for Policy Planning, Project Development, Research and Regulations, in the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA).

Agriculture is a key sector for the Philippines, at almost one-third of total employment and one-tenth of GDP. Agricultural land resources are under strain from frequent natural disasters, rising population and urbanisation; climate change is projected to have a significant impact on land use and yields.

This Review, undertaken in close co-operation with the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA), assesses the performance of agriculture in the Philippines over the last two decades, evaluates Philippine agricultural policy reforms and provides recommendations to address key challenges in the future. The evaluation is based on the OECD Committee for Agriculture’s approach that agriculture policy should be evidence-based and carefully designed and implemented to support productivity, competitiveness and sustainability, while avoiding unnecessary distortions to production decisions and to trade. At the DA’s request, the Review includes a special chapter highlighting key challenges to be addressed to improve the adaptive capacity of agriculture to climate change.

This chapter examines the key issues that have shaped the development of the agricultural sector of the Philippines over the last two decades. It provides a brief overview of political, demographic, macroeconomic and social characteristics of the country. It evaluates the performance of agriculture in terms of production, productivity and trade; discusses its social impacts in terms of employment, poverty and food consumption; outlines its environmental consequences; and finally analyses structural changes in the agro-food sector, including in upstream and downstream sectors.

This chapter describes the main objectives that have guided the design of Philippine agricultural policy since the beginning of the 1990s and the institutional structures established to implement that policy. It provides a systematic overview of domestic and trade policies targeting agriculture, followed by an assessment of the level and structure of support provided to the Philippine agricultural sector over the period 2000-14.

This chapter examines the policy framework and institutions behind climate change adaptation in Philippine agriculture. It also looks at the human, financial, physical and information resources that underpin climate change adaptation in agriculture, and pays particular attention to the factors that influence adaptive capacity. The chapter explores whether current policy measures fully enable producers to adapt to the changing climate, and whether current agriculture programmes appropriately address the sector’s key vulnerabilities.