Analysis of Concerns of the Agricultural Sector in the Philippines using Associative Rule

Abstract

The Philippines is an agricultural country famous for its wide range of natural resources scattered over the archipelago. The country’s agriculture sector comprises four sub-sectors: fisheries, farming, livestock, and forestry. The COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, is straining food systems and causing food insecurity across the world. This study used a mixed method that analyzed qualitative data using quantitative analysis. Concerns voiced by agricultural sectors were analyzed utilizing the frequencies of words used. The study utilized the frequency of the words was TF-IDF or Term Frequency – Inverse Document Frequency to analyze agricultural word concerns. This schema was used as a numeric measure to show the importance of using words to voice out their concerns. The next step is the determination of word patterns using association rule Association Rule Mining. The result reveals the prevalent words used to express concern by the agriculture sector are "cash" and "seed" and "assist" + "cash" is the most frequent word pattern.  The word "cash," the most commonly used word used by the agriculture sector to air their concern, reveals that this sector needs cash assistance to finance their agricultural activities. The result of this study can be utilized to address concerns in the agriculture sector. Furthermore, this research can be utilized in other sectors to analyze their concerns and provide necessary interventions.