Last of three parts
THE Commission on Population and Development (CPD) last week revealed that the Philippines is entering a “demographic sweet spot,” as the percentage of our working population age will increase from the current 64 percent to 70 percent in the next 15 years or so.
This, I believe, will be fueled by more young people joining the country’s workforce, which is made up of citizens aged 15 to 64 years old.
CPD Executive Director Lisa Grace Bersales said that the government must recalibrate its priorities gradually, or to shift from the emphasis on child-centered services toward employment generation, skills development, and job matching, while still sustaining investments in education and nutrition.
Let me add that government should also prioritize getting more young people into the agriculture sector, which will require skills development, and support for agri-based micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). More importantly, the country’s agriculture sector must present attractive opportunities for the youth to be part of the food production industry. And this should be treated with urgency.
Onboarding the youth into the country’s agriculture sector is one of the recommendations discussed during the World Agriculture Forum (WAF) titled “Global Policy Dialogue on Advancing Sustainable Agriculture: From Policy to Practice” held on Nov. 20, 2025.
The output of the WAF is a policy brief titled “Advancing Sustainable Agriculture: From Policy to Practice,” that was authored by yours truly and Dr. Ibrahim Mayaki, former prime minister of Niger, Food Security Envoy, African Union (AU); Dr. Claudia Ringler, director, Natural Resources and Resilience, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); and Prof. Ramesh Chand, member, NITI Aayog, member, Cgiar Integrated Partnership Board, and member, Policy Advisory Council, Aciar.
The policy paper stated that governments across regions must recognize the reality of the youth’s growing role in agricultural innovation and entrepreneurship, and how the youth are influencing labor markets.
“Practical mechanisms include supporting youth-led agribusinesses and digital service providers as delivery partners, creating targeted finance and incubation windows, and embedding youth perspectives in local planning and monitoring processes. Early and meaningful inclusion improves relevance, adoption, and long-term sustainability,” it added.
In essence, the youth are the future of agriculture, especially in countries like the Philippines where the average age of farmers and fishers is nearing 60.
And the policy paper emphasized that the youth can lead innovation in agriculture, such as the establishment of digital advisory, and agri-tech, climate-smart logistics, and supporting financial inclusion.
They can also help build rural MSME startups that can turn villages or communities into laboratories of regeneration. Furthermore, the youth can partner with governments to design youth-sensitive policy instruments, and not merely respond to them.
Wrapping it up
From my discussion in this three-part series, it is obvious that much has to be done to put in place an agriculture sector that is regenerative and not extractive, and can sustain the production of food over the long term through solutions such as adopting more science-based approaches and getting the youth more involved in agriculture.
Hence, the policy paper concluded that governments, especially ours, should adopt and modernize their systems or machineries for implementation.
“This is not about drafting new strategies; it is about redesigning how ministries collaborate, how incentives are structured, and how local governments are empowered,” it stated.
Equally important is involving agencies with mandates on agriculture, water and environment in the planning for the economy and even national security. In the Philippines, this means onboarding the departments of Agriculture, and Environment and Natural Resources into the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), and creating the Department of Water Management (DWM).
I have been advocating for the creation of the DWM, as the country’s fresh water resources is dwindling while the rains from by storms end up getting drained to the seas and oceans, and destroying vulnerable communities.
The DWM, once created, should also be staffed with competent scientists and not bureaucrats with hidden agendas. And relative to that, let me mention one recommendation from the policy paper: Science-based decision-making through soil/water diagnostics, climate modelling, and digital agronomy should be mandated among the concerned agencies.
This means creating and putting in place flexible, real-time feedback systems that allow policies to adapt based on data rather than political cycles or whims.
In delivering science-based solutions, we should also pursue systems that gets research institutions and the academic community/sector involved in co-creating agendas and outcomes with farmers and local units. This will require a shift in policy, as donors usually prescribe the scientific solutions for their projects.
This also means focusing on adaptive, region-specific solutions rather than universal “best practices” and strengthening cooperation with offices involved in gathering statistics. And let me emphasize: Figures and statistics should be the primary tools to improve monitoring and evaluation.
With the aforementioned measures, the challenge in the delivery of services and assistance for the “last quarter mile” will be resolved. This is critical as the stakeholders and actors in the “last quarter mile” also include the disadvantaged who are in the far-flung areas such as Indigenous peoples.
Private sector involvement
Also mentioned in the policy paper is the role of the private sector, who can help attain sustainability in technology, markets, and financing models.
The private sector can also do the following: Create or develop blended financing systems for climate-resilient practices; Develop supply chains that reward sustainability, particularly traceability, low-carbon markets, and regenerative premiums; and co-invest in village-level agricultural infrastructure such as for storage, aggregation, soil testing, and water conservation.
And let me emphasize the crucial role of the private sector in supporting startups and youth-led innovations for precision agriculture, digital extension, and regenerative inputs.
For their part, the farmers, cooperatives, and community institutions should realize their crucial role in this transformation, as they are the “heartbeat” of successful implementation of the related projects and programs at the ground or grassroots level.
Let me also emphasize the need to strengthen cooperatives so they can negotiate for better prices, adopt scientific seed systems, and access financing. Among the objectives is to make cooperatives “billionaires” in terms of assets and globally competitive.
As for donors, multilaterals, and philanthropies, their funding must support implementation capacity, and not just pilot projects.
The policy paper also mentioned the following roles for donors, multilaterals, and philanthropies: Fund long-term institutional reforms to improve enhance delivery systems; support technology diffusion, such as for soil testing, remote sensing, and digital farmer registries; establish pooled funds for water-energy-food-environment nexus programs; and facilitate cross-country learning pathways to assist nations and regions to replicate what actually works in transforming food systems.
While what I discussed in this three-part column-series may look overwhelming, the reality is nothing is “magical” at all. For one, the issues I discussed are nothing new or alien — they simply need to be highlighted anew as not addressing them could be catastrophic over the medium to long term.
The implementing agencies should also be aware of their need to reform or revolutionize their delivery systems, and for the government as a whole to make transforming the current agriculture system into a sustainable model a matter of national survival. In this regard, the commission of corruption should not be tolerated and be punished.
While this is the conclusion of my three-part series, I will surely discuss the issue on the need to transform the current agriculture or food production system in my future columns. I see the need for that as the current food production we have locally and globally is very vulnerable to climate shocks and social upheaval. And we still have time, although dwindling, to take concerted action.
