MANILA, Philippines — The government is proposing ₱16 billion for farm-to-market roads in 2027, but the Department of Agriculture says the amount is nowhere near enough to close a road network gap that still stretches roughly 55,000 kilometers nationwide.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. raised the warning during the House Committee on Appropriations’ deliberations on the DA’s proposed 2027 budget on September 1.
As of August 31, the agriculture chief said around 55,000 kilometers of farm-to-market roads remain needed under the country’s FMR system.
“With the limited budget of P16 billion, we can’t achieve that,” Tiu Laurel told lawmakers, according to the Inquirer.
And the size of that gap becomes more striking when compared with what Congress approved only a year earlier.
From ₱33 Billion to ₱16 Billion
Under the 2026 General Appropriations Act, Congress allocated exactly ₱33.009763 billion for the construction, improvement, rehabilitation and repair of farm-to-market roads.
For 2027, the National Expenditure Program brings the proposed allocation back to ₱16 billion — less than half of the 2026 appropriation.
The ₱33-billion allocation in 2026 was itself an extraordinary increase. The executive branch had originally proposed about ₱16 billion before Congress more than doubled the FMR funding during budget deliberations.
At the time, the DA described the higher allocation as a major investment in rural connectivity. The department estimated that ₱33 billion could finance around 2,750 kilometers of farm-to-market roads if construction costs could be brought down to roughly ₱12 million per kilometer.
Now, the proposed 2027 spending level has returned to ₱16 billion even as tens of thousands of kilometers remain on the government’s FMR requirement list.
Farmers Aren’t Just Asking for Roads
The issue goes beyond concrete and asphalt.
Farm-to-market roads determine how quickly farmers can transport rice, vegetables, livestock, fish and other agricultural products from production areas to trading centers and consumers.
Poor road access can mean higher fuel expenses, longer travel times, damaged produce and greater post-harvest losses — costs that can ultimately affect both farm incomes and food prices.
That is why Tiu Laurel had already been pushing for a significantly larger FMR allocation months before the House budget hearing.
BusinessMirror reported in July that the agriculture chief wanted around ₱32 billion to ₱33 billion for farm-to-market roads in 2027, while the budget ceiling available for the program stood at only ₱16 billion.
Tiu Laurel said farmers and fisherfolk repeatedly ask for better roads because transportation and fuel costs directly affect their ability to bring products to market.
Agriculture Itself Faces a Leaner 2027 Budget
Farm roads are also part of a wider budget squeeze confronting the agriculture sector.
The Philippine News Agency reported that the DA’s proposed 2027 budget stands at ₱198.45 billion, around ₱17.25 billion or 8 percent lower than the ₱215.69 billion approved for the department in 2026.
The proposed amount is also considerably below what the DA had sought during the budget preparation process.
The broader allocation for agriculture and agrarian reform — including the National Irrigation Administration and Department of Agrarian Reform — is proposed to decline from ₱297.10 billion to about ₱261.74 billion.
That leaves policymakers facing a difficult question: how aggressively can the government pursue food security while major agricultural infrastructure requirements remain unfinished?
But More Money Doesn’t Automatically Mean More Roads
The House hearing also exposed another issue that could prove just as important as the size of the budget: implementation.
Data presented from the government’s FMR transparency portal showed 6,428 projects from 2021 to 2026, involving about ₱109.53 billion in investment.
Of those projects, 3,235 were listed as completed, covering approximately 2,485.23 kilometers.
Tiu Laurel explained that projects funded under the 2026 budget had not yet been implemented because their Special Allotment Release Order had only recently been issued by the Department of Budget and Management.
That distinction matters.
A larger appropriation on paper does not immediately produce a usable road. Projects must still be validated, designed, funded, procured, constructed and inspected before farmers see any actual improvement in market access.
DA Now Has More Control — and More Accountability
Another major change happened in 2026.
Responsibility for implementing the farm-to-market road program shifted from the Department of Public Works and Highways to the Department of Agriculture, giving the DA greater control over where projects are located and how they are implemented.
The department said the move could reduce construction costs by at least 20 percent compared with the previous average of roughly ₱15 million per kilometer, potentially bringing costs closer to ₱12 million per kilometer in suitable projects.
But taking control also means taking responsibility.
The DA has introduced an infrastructure watchdog, audits and a digital monitoring system designed to allow greater scrutiny of FMR spending and prevent questionable or so-called “farm-to-pocket” projects.
Officials have also said FMR locations are evaluated using factors including poverty incidence, numbers of farmer and fisherfolk beneficiaries, road conditions, climate resilience, traffic levels, production areas and the economic influence of a proposed road.
The Real Test Comes After the Budget Fight
Congress can still change the ₱16-billion proposal as it debates the 2027 national budget.
That is exactly what happened for 2026, when lawmakers raised the original ₱16-billion proposal to more than ₱33 billion before the spending bill became law.
The coming budget negotiations therefore could determine whether the DA again receives billions more for rural roads — or whether it will have to stretch ₱16 billion across a nationwide requirement measured in tens of thousands of kilometers.
But even if Congress restores the larger allocation, the numbers revealed during the House hearing point to an equally important challenge.
The Philippines does not merely need more farm-to-market road funding. It needs to prove that every peso appropriated becomes an actual road, built in the right place, completed on time and genuinely used by the farmers and fisherfolk it was supposed to serve.
With 55,000 kilometers still needed, the biggest question may no longer be whether ₱16 billion is enough.
It is how many years — and how many more national budgets — farmers will have to wait before the road finally reaches them.
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