In a meeting with the Joint Foreign Chambers, DA Sec. Pinol discussed DA’s plans and strategies in order to ensure affordable and available food for all.
DA’s strategies include:
- National Color-Coded Agricultural Guide Map.
- This helps identify the areas where crops could be ideally grown based on soil types, climatic conditions and other significant factors. The beta version of the said map is already available online.
- National Food Consumption Quantification study
- WorldBank and FAO are working on this to identify the food preferences and consumption patterns of the Philippines 50 years from now. This study seeks to determine the most consumed and in-demand foodstuff and agricultural commodities for all Filipinos.
- Institutional restructuring and paradigm resetting for the Department of Agriculture, its officials, and employees.
- Intensive technology updating and sharing, modernization and mechanization program.
- DA seeks to upgrade its technology for productivity.
- Easy access financing program for farmers, fishermen, and agriculture and fisheries stakeholders.
- Strategic and effective post-harvest, storage and processing facility
- Gov’t initiated and supported aggressive marketing campaign for high-value crops in foreign markets
- DA conceptualized the Philippine Food Skyway which aims to facilitate supply chain and food re-positioning, as well as airlift agricultural products from far-flung areas of the country to big markets.
- Coordination program with government agencies to ensure the protection and preservation of water sources, especially watershed;
- Relentless campaign for the enforcement of agricultural and fisheries laws, especially on land conversion and illegal fishing; and
- Re-introduction of basic agriculture in the primary and elementary grades of the Philippine schools system
- DA signed a MOA with DepEd to promote the ‘backyard gardening’ program to re-introduce basic agriculture to the young ones.
