Roehlano M. Briones

Agriculture and Structural Transformation in Developing Asia: Review and Outlook

Relative to other developing regions, developing Asia has experienced a slower decline in employment share in agriculture, compared to its output share; a rapid growth in labor and land productivity; and a shift from agricultural output from traditional to high-value products. The most successful Asian economies have pursued an agricultural development-led industrialization pathway. Nevertheless, agriculture remains the largest employer in many large Asian countries, hence future structural transformation must take into account agricultural transformation. Extrapolating from past trends, and taking to account emerging conditions, many countries of developing Asia will be expected to move on to the next phase of agricultural development; however even in the long term, agriculture’s employment share will continue to be sizable relative with the output share. To expedite transformation, many Asian countries will still need to promote long term productivity growth in agriculture and facilitate upgrading of their farms and agroenterprises within the global value chain.

Impacts from and State Responses to Natural Disasters in the Philippines

This study quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes the impacts of natural disasters on agriculture, food security and the natural resources and environment in the Philippines and uncovers a number of findings. Typhoons, floods and droughts have an insignificant impact on overall agricultural production at the national level, yet typhoons may have a significant negative impact on paddy rice production at the provincial level. Further, typhoons, as exemplified by Ondoy and Pepeng in 2009, have a significant negative impact on the food security of the households in the affected areas. Households have varying consumption and non-consumption strategies to cope with the impacts of typhoons. The different impacts of typhoons, floods and droughts on the natural resources and environment have not been quantitatively assessed in detail, however available evidence suggests that these are also substantial. This chapter recommends that assistance for rice farmers and the agriculture sector as a whole should be made more site-specific, zeroing in on the affected areas that actually need it. Finally, those assisting affected households and areas should consider not only consumption strategies but also non-consumption strategies, such as the provision of post-disaster emergency employment.