Stronger reforms in agricultural policies would help shield the Philippines from experiencing food crisis in the future, Sen. Edgardo Angara Friday said.

Angara said the disclosure made by President Benigno Aquino III in his first State-of-the-Nation Address regarding excessive rice imports necessitates the call to strengthen policies on domestic trade and agriculture, including its sub-sectors, and to implement strategies to ward off a possible food shortage and price crisis in the country.

Angara said he has always supported sustainable programs for local agriculture that would promote rice autonomy.

"If we are able to provide the necessary support for farmers’ infrastructure, post-harvest, irrigation, access to credit, we will dramatically increase local production and do away with heavy rice importation,” said Angara.

Angara previously headed the Department of Agriculture (DA). He said local farmers have long been suffering problems such as lack of grains facilities, post-harvest network, as well as environmental factors like salinity of water, flood and drought.

In the Philippines, around 400,000 hectares of coastal rice-growing land is affected by salinity from sea water, he said.

“Farmers often don’t plant in this region because of the risk of crop failure. Frequent experience of severe typhoons causing flood makes us lose an estimated 228,350 tons of rice and upland areas in the Philippines suffer from drought due to lack of water,” he said.

"We need to address these issues immediately if food is our priority,” Angara said.

Angara said a United Nations (UN) food envoy had warned a new food price crisis is only a matter of time, citing the price spikes in 2008 blamed on speculation and the domination of global food markets by large agri-business corporations.

The World Bank has earlier warned that countries need to be prepared for another food crisis and steps should be taken immediately to build food security in developing nations.

Recovery of developed countries from the global economic crisis is resulting in higher oil prices, causing the price of agricultural inputs and commodities to rise.

Angara said this puts the Philippines -- one of the world’s biggest rice importers -- in a particularly vulnerable state.

“As a result of inadequacies in our agriculture sector, food is more expensive to produce here than in many parts of Asia," he said, adding that plugging these loopholes in post-harvest losses in the grains sector even by half would significantly reduce the government's import dependency ratio.

“Moreover, Philippine agriculture is handicapped by the lack of basic facilities such as farm to market roads, irrigation networks, fishing ports and access to basic credit,” he said.

The 15th Congress, he said, should expedite passage of measures in the Senate that seeks to improve or upgrade agriculture laws.

Among the reforms Angara proposes are the Agriculture and Fisheries Extension Act of 2009, the Coconut Industry Development Act, Coconut Emergency Measures Act, and the Rural Employment Generation Act.

These bills address the shortages in production among the agriculture sub-sectors, maximize rural lands, and promote innovations in the coconut industry and reforms in the previously enacted Agro-Fisheries Law.