Marcos focuses on agriculture as driver of economy – DA official

MANILA, Philippines — The biggest achievement of President Marcos is focusing on agriculture as the driver of the economy as he is set to deliver his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) today, a ranking official of the Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

In an interview with The STAR over the weekend, Agriculture Assistant Secretary and deputy spokesman Rex Estoperez added that Marcos has started to address the challenges in the agriculture sector.

“The Philippines is an agricultural country and therefore just like his father, he focused on agriculture as the driver of the economy,” Estoperez said.

Estoperez said that under the leadership of Marcos as secretary of the DA, efforts are being made for the sector to recover from the effects of the pandemic.

“Of course, there are many challenges just like the Russia-Ukraine (war), the increase in prices of inputs. These are the challenges that we have to solve insofar as the production of our food,” he added.

According to Estoperez, during the second year of Marcos as secretary of the DA, the public should expect the full implementation of programs, including partnering with the private sector, the use of innovation and the technology in the development of agriculture.

He added that the President is expected to tackle issues affecting the people and the economy such as issues on food security and making nutritious food affordable to the Filipino people during today’s SONA.

Meanwhile, farmers’ group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura executive director Jayson Cainglet said that the decision of Vietnam and India to slash its rice exports and the spike in the prices of imported grains should be a wakeup call to the government to stop its dependence on importation and prioritize local palay production.

“The decision of India (with 30 percent of global rice production) and Vietnam (15 percent of total rice exports; but 80-85 percent of our rice imports) will heavily impact all net rice importing countries, especially the Philippines,” Cainglet said.

He noted that 80 to 85 percent of the country’s rice imports comes from Vietnam.

India supplies 30 percent of the global rice requirement while Vietnam exports 15 percent of the world’s total grains needs.

“Now is the time for the National Economic and Development Authority and our economic team to accept these realities. Unlimited imports and reduced tariffs have never tamed rice prices and it never will,” Cainglet said.

The Bureau of Plant Industry has said that total rice imports reached 1.8 million metric tons in the first six months of 2023.