The Philippines needs to have an aggressive, stronger agriculture sector if it wants to reduce poverty and make inclusive growth a reality than just a mere economic concept that every country has been meaning to achieve. The Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC) of the Philippines launched a policy note on agribusiness on Tuesday, revealing that the worsening poverty in the Philippines as well as the lack of inclusive growth both has a lot to do with the country’s slow moving agriculture sector. “If the government wishes to reduce poverty, it must deal with agriculture. That’s where most of the poor people in the Philippines are,” John Forbes, senior advisor of American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham) for the Arangkada Philippines Project, said. As of now, the agriculture sector accounts for 10 percent of the Philippine gross domestic product (GDP), growing only by an average of 1.3 percent over the [...]
