LAND use is a touchy subject in any country, and particularly so here in the Philippines. The seemingly endless struggle to produce enough food for a steadily expanding population is constantly handicapped by strong competition for control of the land needed to grow it.

The proposition is deceptively simple: in order to achieve 'food security,' whatever detailed form that might take, the Philippines needs to start with fully utilizing its lands for which the best use is actually agriculture and then, maximizing those lands' output to minimize the necessity of sourcing food supplies from elsewhere. In spite of the existence of an enormous bureaucracy, comprising an alphabet soup of agencies that are supposed to work together toward that objective, it remains elusive.