ABSTRACT
The Philippines, a country consisting of approximately 7,100 islands, covers a total land area of 30 million hectares. Agriculture accounts for more than one-quarter of the country’s GNP, contributed 22 per cent of total exports in 1989 and is therefore a priority in the country’s development planning. Along with Bangladesh, the Philippines is now the poorest country in the region. Almost half of the labour force are engaged in agriculture, although only a small minority actually own the land they work. A national survey carried out by the social weather stations in 1987 (ed by Liamzon and Salinas 1989) reported that 71 per cent of Filipino households own no agricultural land. There are over 2 million sharecroppers and 1.5 million people farming public lands without title. Two out of every three families live below the poverty threshold of P2, 531 per year for a family of six; 85 per cent of all school children in the country are deficient in protein and calorie intake and up to 40 per cent of all fatalities are the result of malnutrition (Steinberg 1986).
