Benchmarking: Knowing Where We Are
An important tool in agri-development, especially for the policy makers in the bureaucracy, is to benchmark against other countries in terms of productivity and market access capability. We need this to know how we compare in the international arena of global competitiveness, with special emphasis on other ASEAN countries as we produce similar products.
And for lack of reliable benchmarking or comparative information, we somehow fall into a trap of announcing policy interventions that tend to bring us nowhere. This calls to mind the case of the program to export tilapia fish fillet to the United States. An abundance of tilapia in the local market led to a program to encourage local producers to try the U.S. market, knowing that the price of tilapia fish fillet in the supermarket shelves was five to six times the prevailing domestic prices. And after a few press releases, the project was never heard again.
Then again, the program to make local coffee world-class and competitive was announced. And more programs were bandied about, like cocoa production to supply international demand, mango puree to supply the needs of America and Europe. And at the initiative of a member (Of congress from the Cordillera, local potato production was geared to supply the needs of hamburger chains and other fastfood outlets.
There are many more initiatives that turned out to be short lived or had not seen the light of day.
In the advent of multilateral trade talks and market openings, and with the ensuing global competition, knowing where we are is a critical issue that should always be known to all stakeholders as an investment tool. It is a needed assistance, if not an obligation or a function of the bureaucracy, to guide would be participants as it entails enormous cost to undertake individual benchmarking. More so, as it being a dynamic thing, a constant review and study is the order of the day.
There are products before that were highly competitive but are not anymore. But some other farm produce can become competitive, given the correct policy support. And late market developments can make other products acceptable and competitive in the world market, as in the case of our chicken cut ups being exported to Japan (as we remain free of the dreaded Asian avian flu) though there has been a remarkable comeback of Thai exports of the same product.
An on-going benchmarking can re-align limited resources to focus on areas where there can be higher chances of success. A competitiveness level in the international market is attained by streamlining local production process and capabilities (thereby increasing productivity and reducing costs) coupled with infrastructure support. And the needed information for this is generated by comparing our domestic capability and cost with what is now available in the market.
In finding where we are, we can now produce the road map necessary to plot our policy interventions and the direction to take and eliminate wasteful use of resources.
Long time ago, the private sector, sitting down with DA policy makers, identified commodity champions that can he pushed in the international market as export winners. But then again, not much has been heard from this exercise as there seems to be a gap between public announcement and the needed actions or support to bring such projects into reality.
It is then of great importance that the present leadership at the DA has taken cognizance of this gap or long delayed reaction and has embarked in a “market-oriented” approach, as in the opening of a Philippine wholesale market space in Southern China, on top of their regular funding assistance to exporters to join trade exhibits and seminars and many other market interventions. DA is also putting up trade assistance desks in other areas outside of where we have our agri-attaches.
But then again, all of these actions need to go back to how we stand on the export market in terms of our being competitive. While our local exporters are able to sustain some of their food exports, they have not been able to penetrate the mainstream market as their clienteles have been largely limited to Filipino communities abroad. I have yet to see our products in the shelves of large retailers like Walmart or Save A Lot in the United States or Dominion Supermarkets in Canada.
Going to the basics of knowing where we are- which is the function of benchmarking- will definitely give us the mileage that will bring us to where we want to go. Otherwise, we might claim we are moving forward, and yet in reality, we are going in circles, and that circle might be getting smaller every time.
It is never too late to do this.
