Reality check: the average age of farmers in the country is 58. This agricultural country has only produced a total of 11,262 professional agriculturists for the past three years . And many of the graduates are employed by the multinationals engaged in agriculture here and abroad. As the nation with the fifth longest coastline in the world, the Philippines has only produced 1,949 fisheries professionals .
The Philippines is the second biggest importer of rice next to China. In 2022, the Philippines imported a total of $1.2 billion worth of rice.In January 2022, there was a fish supply shortfall of 119, 000 metric tons, according to BFAR. And the Department of Agriculture has approved the importation of 35,000 metric tons of fish for wet markets for the last quarter of 2023. Vietnam had a 47-percent share of this importation in 2022, which amounted to $49 million .