Three years into President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s term, the blueprints of corporate, industrial, and neoliberal policies continue to remain present. Supposedly poised to revitalize the economy, the Build Better More (BBM) Program—the flagship infrastructure plan of the administration—continues to supplant agricultural land with commercial and mixed-use projects, impacting local food production.

Beneath the guise of economic growth, the destruction of the livelihoods of thousands of farmers is apparent, as forced and oftentimes unjust land grabbing paves the way for the land use conversion of agricultural soil. 

Rooted in these problems, the agricultural heartlands of Central Luzon, dubbed as the “rice granaries” of the country, have been facing the obstacle of pervasive land use conversion while being primed for industrialization over the years.

What conditions does BBM put our farmers in?

Farmers of the country’s granaries are still at risk of eviction, as land use conversion is streamlined by frameworks such as the Central Luzon - Regional Development Plan. Economic hubs built on the displacement of indigenous peoples and farmers, such as New Clark City, are strengthened by the framework. Worse, peasant resistance continues to be suppressed by state or private forces through harassment.

Though legal protection like the Magna Carta for Small Farmers obligates the state to champion policies that “promote self-sufficiency and full development of agricultural potentials,” agrarian reform laws continue to re-concentrate land ownership into the hands of corporate entities, says Ronnie Manalo, secretary-general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).

“Nagiging instrumento pa ang batas para bawian ng lupa ang mga magsasaka,” he adds. Farmers have faced the government’s tokenistic and insufficient approach to agrarian reform since Cory Aquino’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, up until the present, as in the case of the current administration’s populist New Agrarian Emancipation Act, which continues to trap farmers in landlessness and poverty. Four decades’ worth of attempts have been fruitless as 7 out of 10 rural farmers remain landless.

The apparent inefficacy of these attempts, by and large, encapsulates the brand of development the state brandishes. Unsupported and underprioritized, farmers continue to have no place in the system, while the government boasts its marginal solutions.

The livelihood of farmers across Central Luzon remains in limbo with the current paradigm of development failing to boost local production. As private contractors and foreign investors reshape the region with economic hubs, expressways, and bridges, its agricultural potential is left behind by ineffective policies.

How does the pivot from local production shape our country?

Central Luzon posted the biggest share in agricultural and fisheries value production at 13.7% in 2024, according to a report from the Philippine Statistics Authority. The vital contribution of the region’s consistent harvests serve as a lifeline for the country’s struggling food supply.

But land use conversion has exacerbated agricultural problems in the country’s granaries, significantly contributing to the upwards of 51 million Filipinos who have experienced food insecurity between 2021 and 2024, according to a study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

As importation remains the government’s convenient fix against food crises, the widening of the country’s agricultural trade balance deficits (see sidebar 1) poses risks such as inflation, job loss, and economic uncertainty. These deficits only risk overdependence on foreign imports further, rendering the country’s food supply vulnerable to global disruptions such as conflicts or recessions.

“Inaayon ng gobyerno ang patakaran nila sa mga dayuhang kapitalista na hindi naman sa produksyong lokal ang interes,” KMP Secretary-General Ronnie Manalo told the Collegian. This economic leverage threatens our sovereignty, as indicated by recent trade agreements with the US, pinning the Philippines to preemptive commitments to agricultural importation, rendering the country vulnerable to imperialist whims.

But the pivot to foreign preference has not stopped at unfair trade agreements. Policies such as the Rice Liberalization Law and ASEAN’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership have lowered trade barriers and has made it significantly easier for traders to import.

Evidently, policies that neglect the empowerment of local production become seeds from which sprout economic and agrarian insecurity. As the people starve and foreign powers put an economic chokehold on the country, the government’s policies put the country at risk of endless crises.

How can a truly food-secure Philippines be realized?

Halfway through his presidency, Marcos Jr. is still apathetic to the plights of the peasantry. If the government wants agricultural policies to realize its goals of food security, it must give ample support to the peasantry through overhauling policies such as the pestilent Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in favor of an equitable land redistribution for local farmers.  

Once farmers are able to till their own land, genuine agrarian reform will follow with the rejection of applications for land use conversion and a distribution system, as present in the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill, which farmers advocate as precondition for development and national industrialization.

But solutions do not simply stop when land ownership becomes secure and fair. The government must sow seeds of equitable development through the subsidization of farming equipment and rice procurement from peasant farmers, unshackling them from the trap of landlessness.

As the backbone on which the nation remains fed, our farmers should be protected from the high price of misprioritization. The government’s current brand of development must be uprooted such that future agrarian law goes against the grain of foreign hegemony, no longer blurring the vision of a food-secure Philippines. ●

First published in the July 28, 2025, print edition of the Collegian.