Section 3December 22, 1997, Sec./Art. 3

Statement of Objectives. - This Act shall have the following objectives:

a) To modernize the agriculture and fisheries sectors by transforming these sectors from a resource-based to a technology-based industry;

b) To enhance profits and incomes in the agriculture and fisheries sectors, particularly the small farmers and fisherfolk, by ensuring equitable access to assets, resources and services, and promoting higher-value crops, value-added processing, agribusiness activities, and agro-industrialization;

c) To ensure the accessibility, availability and stable supply of food to all at all times;

d) To encourage horizontal and vertical integration, consolidation and expansion of agriculture and fisheries activities, group functions and other services through the organization of cooperatives, farmers' and fisherfolk's associations, corporations, nucleus estates, and consolidated farms and to enable these entities to benefit from economies of scale, afford them a stronger negotiating position, pursue more focused, efficient and appropriate research and development efforts and enable them to hire professional managers;

e) To promote people empowerment by strengthening people's organizations, cooperatives and NGO's and by establishing and improving mechanisms and resources for their participation in government decision-making and implementation;

f) To pursue a market-driven approach to enhance the comparative advantage of our agriculture and fisheries sectors in the world market;

g) To induce the agriculture and fisheries sectors to ascend continuously the value-added ladder by subjecting their traditional or new products to further processing in order to minimize the marketing of raw, unfinished or unprocessed products;

h) To adopt policies that will promote industry dispersal and rural industrialization by providing incentives to local and foreign investors to establish industries that have backward linkages to the country's agriculture and fisheries resource base;

i) To provide social and economic adjustment measures that increase productivity and improve market efficiency while ensuring the protection and preservation of the environment and equity for small farmers and fisherfolk; and

j) To improve the quality of life of all sectors.