2nd Reaction Paper for Economics: Agriculture

AGRICULTURE IN THE PHILIPPINES

     Agricultural products comprised only about 5 percent of the country's exports, with electronic products accounting for almost 52 percent of export receipts. While the agriculture sector employed 11 million Filipinos or 36.4 percent of the entire employed population estimated at 30.186 million workers as of April 2002, the sector contributed only 21 percent to the GDP in 2001.

     The Philippines, which remains largely rural and agricultural, has become the world's fourth largest importer of rice, after Indonesia, Nigeria and Iran. Citing a report of the US Department of Agriculture, Representative Satur Ocampo said the country imported about 1.18 million tons metric tons of rice in 2001 and a total of 1.2 million metric tons (24 million 50-kilogram bags) of rice in 2002.

    Sugarcane is considered the largest non-cereal crop in the Philippines in terms of metric tons produced. According to the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), around 556,000 farmers and 25,000 sugar mill workers are employed in the local sugar industry. In 1999, the total size of sugar farms was 359,977 hectares, with total production of 1.53 million metric tons.

   The Philippines supplies 13.5 percent of the US sugar requirements under a quota system. Ironically, the country could not even meet its own local demand. It has to import around 350,000 metric tons of sugar in order to meet its domestic demand of about 1.9 million tons annually. Filipinos consume 150,000 metric tons of raw sugar per month. The country produced about 28.24 million metric tons of sugarcane in 2001.

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Reaction

    I think that agriculture is one of the largest sector in Philippine Economy. The country's main agricultural crops are rice, corn, coconut, sugarcane, bananas, pineapple, coffee, mangoes, tobacco, and abaca (a banana-like plant). Secondary crops include peanut, cassava, camote (a type of rootcrop), garlic, onion, cabbage, eggplant, calamansi (a variety of lemon), rubber, and cotton. Rice as the most common crop in many rural areas made our economy improve.Sugar is also the main product from sugarcanes and helps other unemployed workers to be employed. Many workers are employed by working through  Sugar Mills or work as farmers for low lands or any type of lands that is available for planting. However, there are issues in regards with the funds of agricultural economy. The government didn't give enough support like programs to enable the farmers to produce more crops than they normally do. Corruption occurs in our economy. This is one of the reasons why the agricultural economy of the Philippines slowly progressed. Examples of these programs  and projects that are not adequately funded by our government is the construction of efficient irrigation systems which would have a huge help for farmers to have adequate supply of water for their crops. I think that the government should give attention to the agricultural sector of our country for it has given supported our needs and supplied the market goods and products to be used by Philippine people. If the government act immediately on their projects regarding agricultural issues, maybe our agricultural economy might not deteriorate, maybe we would not be in our country's present sorry status.

Economics III: ARTICLE ABOUT PHILIPPINE ECONOMY

PHILIPPINE ECONOMY:

Despite the fact that the Philippines were once the wealthiest country in Asia, after Japan, it has slowly become one of the poorest in the region since it gained independence in 1946. The economy further declined in the early 1980s on account of the reduced demand for Philippine products, the United States' pullout, and an increased rate of corruption. A projected 10% of the GNP was lost to corruption and capitalism during this period. The economic recovery since then has been noteworthy but slow in comparison to other East Asian nations. According to the GDP per capita, the Philippines at present ranks 118th out of 178 states.

The financial system of the Philippines particularly had trouble during the Asian monetary emergency of 1998. Increasing prices, inflation, and poor weather aggravated these poor economic conditions. Economic development fell from 5% in 1997 to 0.6% in 1998; however, it improved to about 3% in 1999 and 4% in 2000, and by 2004 it rose to above 6% per year. Budgetary provisions for servicing debt in the Philippines were higher than the budget for education and defense together.

Income disparity also remains a grave problem in the country. The Philippines continues to be a largely agricultural country; however, light industry and services have made noteworthy contributions. In the past few years, there have been noticeable developments in the Philippines as the number of business process outsourcing (BPO) industries has increased. With the introduction of the BPO industries, there have been considerable boosts in the rate of employment. This has given rise to various job opportunities for the Filipinos. There are approximately 500 companies in the Philippines that have improved the quality of service by providing jobs. The Philippines is among the many countries that house the leading BPO industries.

The Philippines is among the countries associated with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank. In the year 2005, the peso was known as Asia's best performing currency.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/411154




REACTION:

The first time I encountered the word "ECONOMICS", I didn't know that the word itself is very important in our country today. According to the article above that Philippines is once the wealthiest country in Asia. We will never know that fact if we didn't know the Economy of our country a few years before and Economics made it possible for us to know that fact. From the article, the words increasing prices, inflation, rates, budgets, job opportunities, currency are a few terms in Economics that are very important in representing the Economy of the Philippines today and in the preceding years to come. Studying Economics offers us a wide scope of understanding of why the Philippine Economy is facing these crisis today, and gives us clear points of the ups and downs of our Economy. Economics represents these interpretations in models and graphs which includes calculations and theories that summarizes all points and provides a way of clearer understandings. In these ways. we can determine the status of our country's economic stableness whether the country is improving, stable or in a poor state. Therefore, I conclude that Economics is important in our country.