Department of Agriculture (DA) Sec. Emmanuel Pinol said under the launch of “Masaganang Ani 200″, the Philippines will able to stop rice importation, which, he said is economically pulling down the country’s food strategy.
“Masaganang Ani 200 is our best option,” said Pinol. “Next year, we’ll have one million hectares for hybrid rice to achieve sufficiency. We only have hybrid on less than 10 percent of our four million-hectare rice land. We’ll present this program to the Cabinet on April 19.”
“The truth is we can’t just depend on other countries,” he said, adding that, “We don’t know when the next typhoon will come or when the next El Nino will hit us.”
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) noted that as of 2014, traded rice stood at 42 million MT.
Without such strategy, he said the country risks food shortage when “the name of the game will be the highest bidder (when rice volume slims) like in 2008 when price shot up to,200 per ton.”
Pinol said DA will organize service providers that will allow farmers’ use of equipment like tractors, transplanters and combine harvesters.
With the limited fund, DA cannot just give these away to farmers but a service provider will make adequate supply of these needs.
