Challenges and Recommendations in the Industrial Tree Plantations (ITP)

To enable the ITP industry to realize its significant economic contributions particularly in providing employment and increasing rural incomes, the challenges in the supply chain must be attended to. On the policy issues, the following are advocated:

1. To protect the interest of the WPPs and tree farmers, there is a need to review DMO 99-20 and EO 23 and provide a consistent policy in the marketing of cut logs. There is also a need to promote a rewarding environment for the wood industry players with legitimate transactions.
2. To deter illegal practices, implementation protocols of related policies have to be reviewed for standardization purposes and an effective control system has to be devised. Reforms should include intensive information dissemination to tree farmers, intensive education of DENR employees who are tasked to implement policies, and more transparent guidelines to establish ITP farms and harvest trees.
3. To improve transparency in the supply chain, guidelines for contract tree farming must be formulated. There is a need to catalyze a coordinated response plan to managing the problems in the wood industry to strengthen existing wood industry organizations and farmer groups. Contract tree farming can help farmers have stable incomes by reducing production risks and ensuring a steady demand of logs from wood processing firms.

Streamlining permit processes to improve transparency in the supply chain is fundamental and deters illegal transactions. All these lead to inefficient allocation of resources and address many of the logistic issues in the supply chain.