DA seeks access to US funding

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is seeking access to the P1.5 billion fund from the US government which was intended to develop the country’s dairy industry.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said he would brief President Duterte about this fund ahead of President Trump’s visit to the Philippines in the second week of November.

“We hope to utilize the remaining P1.5 billion under the US PL 480 which was not used for so many years. We had a meeting with the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) and we presented our proposed dairy program which would span three years starting 2019 to 2021 and they agreed with our proposal,” Piñol said.

Enacted in 1954, US Public Law 480 or the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act aims to use agricultural productivity to enhance the food security of developing countries.

“It was not utilized because there was no concrete program.  I think it’s with the national treasury and it’s too late when I learned about it so we were not able to include it in our budget. It cannot be used unless you include it in the GAA (General Appropriations Act),” Piñol said.

“We can infuse it for the DA budget by 2019 but that is a good thing because we will still be able to prepare right away,” he added.

Beneficiaries of the US PL 480 program are developing countries that are having difficulties in providing the food needs of its citizens.

However, Piñol said corruption was prevalent in the past that old goats from the US where shipped into the country instead of the better ones which would have improved the genetics of the ones here in the Philippines.

“We do not want to repeat what happened before. What we intend to do now is to choose the best genetics from the American goat breeders,” Piñol said.

As the department prepares its dairy goat milk production program, Piñol is also set to meet with the dairy goat raisers in the US.

The DA aims to raise milk production from one percent to 10 percent of the national requirements by the end of Duterte’s term.

Last year, dairy production went up four percent to 21,160 metric tons, registering the highest increase under the livestock sector at 10 percent to P715 million.

Despite this, the industry still could not supply the local requirement as the country imported 453,000 MT of dairy valued at $808 million in 2016.

Most of the imports were from New Zealand with 39 percent of the total and the US (24 percent). Other sources were Australia and Germany.