LAST week's column discussed how agricultural trade policy reforms could lead to lowering agricultural and food prices. However, ultimately bringing down prices of any goods or services necessitates significantly raising supply, which in turn is a function of increasing productivity.
Sadly, Philippine agriculture productivity is woefully low. Comparative studies measuring total factor productivity (TFP) among leading Southeast Asian countries reveal that the Philippines has one of the lowest. TFP is a measure of the ratio of aggregate output to aggregate inputs or, in layman's terms, how inputs were efficiently used in producing a particular output. The worrying problem is that as the years have passed, Philippine TFP has gone from bad to worse.
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