DA confident on 2% agri growth in 2019
Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 16:23:30 +0000
THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is maintaining its target of 2-percent growth for the agriculture sector this year, with the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Program (RCEP) making a significant contribution.
“We will maintain that target. The implementation of RCEP will be a big factor to reckoning it from August 2019 to end of July 2020,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said during a press conference on Tuesday in Quezon City.
The RCEP will be funded by tariffs collected from imported rice that would be funneled to the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF).
Upon assignment to his post, Dar set a target of 3 to 4 percent growth in the agriculture sector in the next three years, with the goal of achieving food security in the Philippines.
For 2019, the DA is targeting a 2-percent agricultural growth, to cope with the challenges on food production amid a population growth of 1.8 percent annually.
”Our target for second year that should be between 2-3 [percent], so [a] 2.5-[percent] average,” Dar said.
In a separate interview, Dar explained the DA remains optimistic on hitting its growth target for 2019 “even with the ASF (African swine fever),” because “rice will still be the driving factor [since] crops sector [contributes the largest production].”
The DA’s Bureau of Animal Industry, meanwhile, said 62,223 pigs have been so far culled or depopulated because of ASF.
The ASF scare has also prompted cities and provinces, particularly in the Visayas and Mindanao, to ban the entry of live hogs and pork products from ASF-hit areas. But Dar said this will not stop the agriculture sector from hitting its growth target for the year.
The agriculture chief said the DA is largely banking on the implementation of the RCEP, which stems from
Republic Act 11203 or the “Rice Tariffication Law.”
“The expected effect [of RCEP] is to make farmers more productive, competitive and prosperous. If we are targeting five to six metric tons [of yield per hectare] and basing it on our adequacy level of 93 percent, the gap will be little to have 100 percent food available for the population. In effect, it will balance everything out,” Dar pointed out.
For six years, the RCEF will be endowed with P10 billion a year to improve mechanization, and access to high-yielding seeds and financing to rice farmers.
With the annual rice fund, the DA through the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization will provide farmers with P5-billion worth of machinery and equipment, free high-yielding seeds worth P3 billion from the Philippine Rice Research Institute, P1 billion for credit to be released by the Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines, and P1 billion in training and extension services to be spearheaded by the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI).
Under the new leadership, the DA is adopting a “new thinking” strategy, which aims to empower farmers, fishers and private sectors to increase their productivity and profitability through agriculture sustainability and resilience.
Its programs will focus on modernization and industrialization of agriculture, promotion of exports, farm consolidation, road map and infrastructure development, higher budget and investments for agriculture and legislative support.
For the last ten years, the country’s agriculture growth rate averaged 1.1 percent. In 2018, the Philippine agriculture grew by only 0.56 percent, missing the target of 4 percent set by the former agriculture chief and current Mindanao Development Authority Chairman Emmanuel Piñol.