Highlighting the importance of food security in ensuring food sovereignty, Agriculture Secretary William Dar called on universities and other academic institutions to urge legislators to provide much-needed substantial budgetary support to the Department of Agriculture (DA) to enable it to unlock the full potential of Philippine agriculture.
While food security relates to the protection of the current food systems, food sovereignty refers to the many components and measures in mitigating hunger and poverty, including production, distribution and consumption, and the actual food system itself.
It calls for trade and investment activities, and promotes control over resources, agrarian reform and tenure security for small-scale producers, agroecology, and biodiversity, among others. Rooted at the grassroots food movements, food sovereignty involves the participation of not only the food producers but the citizens as well.
“To accelerate the development and growth of the farming sector, we need to bring Public-Private Partnership.”
“To accelerate the development and growth of the farming sector, we need to bring Public-Private Partnership — meaning build, operate and transfer — to attract big money from foreign and Filipino investors and the private sector,” Dar said during his visit at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños recently.
Dar said the Department will require the wealth of knowledge from UPLB scientists, economists, and experts in boosting productivity of commodities including rice, corn, fisheries and mariculture, and high-value crops using the best of science and technology systems.
The agriculture chief added that the participation of the private sector is crucial in attaining the food targets of the government.
During the visit, the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the University of the Philippines in Los Baños (UPLB) led by Chancellor Jose V. Camacho, Jr., signed two separate Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) for collaborative programs, which will support the local production of seeds and biotechnology input, as well as the intensified crop production efforts of the government.
“We welcome this partnership with UPLB because with all the global economic challenges brought by COVID-19 pandemic, compounded with the Russia-Ukraine crisis, we need to cushion the effects of these crises,” the agriculture head said.
He added that the local production remains sufficient.
“Walang pilahan na nangyari dahil merong pagkain from local production and imports in ensuring food security.”
“Walang pilahan na nangyari dahil merong pagkain from local production and imports in ensuring food security,” Dar stressed.
He said that with all the challenges that the local agriculture is facing, it is high time for the government to invest so that the country may attain food sovereignty level and not depend heavily on imports.
“Food sovereignty is possible. Dagdagan lang ng budget ay kayang-kaya natin,” Dar said.
He cited the experience of Bangladesh, which he visited recently, where there is political will from the government to provide a bigger budget in agriculture, thereby enabling it to be food sufficient.
“We can produce our own food if we unlock the potential of agriculture by providing it with significant budget and funds so that science and technology, as well as research and development can grow side-by-side,” Dar said.
Under the MOU, the DA will get the expertise of UPLB through the Institute of Plant Breeding (IPB) for seeds and the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (NIMBB) for biotechnology inputs.
These will strengthen the public sector network of government, private sectors, farmers, and other stakeholders to supply the national requirement on seeds and biotechnology inputs, and complement seeds and biotech inputs supply from private company efforts.
UPLB-IPB will undertake programs supporting the production of seeds/scions/stocks for priority crops of assured genetic provenance such as commercial crops (plantation, fruits, vegetables, legumes, root crops) and food staples crops (rice, corn, cassava, and adlay).
UPLB-NIMBB, on the other hand, will support the production of biofertilizers, feed ingredients/supplements, probiotics and other products of biotechnology.
The collaboration aims to support the research for development on seeds technologies and biotechnology, and other related items.
