More investors plan to put up biofuel facilities

More investors are planning to put up biofuel facilities in the country, Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap said.

He said among the areas where investors plan to set up plants are in the Ilocos region, Cagayan Valley, Western Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern and Central Mindanao and the Davao region.

The biofuel facilities would be put up either through straight purchases, lease arrangements, contract growing or joint ventures, Yap said.

He said the Department of Agriculture (DA) expects the growing global demand for crops-based alternative clean fuels to boost the Philippine farm sector, increasing the profitability of small stakeholders and reducing the country’s dependence on imported energy sources.

Through the Philippine Agricultural Development and Commercial Corp. (PADCC), the DA has committed to promote the biofuels sector by generating awareness on the use of agricultural feed stocks for ethanol and biodiesel production.

Yap said the agency is in the process of identifying for private sector investments more than 400,000 hectares of land to plant crops that would be used as feedstock for biofuels production.

About 90,000 hectares are located in the North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle; 10,000 hectares in Central Philippines; and 300,000 hectares in Agribusiness Mindanao, Yap said.

He said the land being processed already represent 78 percent of the 600,000-hectare target for this year.

The identified land would be planted to cassava, oil palm, coconut, sugarcane, jatropha, and other crops used as feedstock for biofuels production.

Yap said farmers stand to earn more through profit sharing, guaranteed income packages or straight purchases of harvested crops, and benefit from new planting technologies that would create more jobs and boost production.