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By Ira Karen Apanay Senior
Reporter
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap
on Wednesday announced that President Gloria Arroyo has earmarked
P2.82 billion for a program to mitigate the impact of a looming
global food crunch caused by tightening supplies and soaring basic
commodity prices.
Yap said the augmentation fund is
on top of the P1.5-billion regular budget of the department for
infrastructure projects, such as repair or rehabilitation of
irrigation systems.
He added that President Arroyo
also ordered the department to expand its hunger mitigation, such as
through the Gulayan ng Masa or backyard vegetable-growing program,
enhance its Tindahan Natin (Our Store) projects, and set up more
barangay or village food terminals for the benefit of ordinary
consumers as well as bagsakan (drop-off points) in urban centers for
the produce of farmers and fishermen.
During the latest Cabinet
meeting, Yap presented to the President disturbing supply shortfalls
and price upswings in rice and other grains in the world market as a
result of stagnating farm productivity, rising production costs,
soaring demand, and the “food vs. biofuel” clash in certain
economies.
“As I have explained to the
Cabinet, the next two years will not be a normal two years,” he
said. “We have to work overtime in addressing this looming food
problem.”
Yap said Mrs. Arroyo also
instructed him during the Cabinet meeting to intensify the
department’s swine restocking and livestock vaccination programs
as one more government step to insulate Filipinos from the looming
food squeeze and a feared recession in the United States.
He added that they will also
institutionalize a third cropping season for palay under their Quick
Turnaround (QTA) program, expanding its coverage to 92,000 hectares
this year from 80,000 hectares in 2007.
The program was carried out as an
emergency measure to hit palay-production targets amid a dry spell
that had initially threatened to hurt major rice-growing regions,
including Luzon, the country’s biggest group of islands.
Yap said the President also
directed him to ensure the participation of all agricultural
stakeholders in next month’s Food Summit. The meeting will be
convened to attune the government’s rural-development goals to its
“Pagkain sa Bawat Mesa, Negosyo sa Sakahan-Laban sa Kahirapan.”
That translates to: food on every table, business in farming against
poverty.
He added that Mrs. Arroyo had
approved his proposal for an augmentation budget to enable the
department to facilitate the planting of certified rice seeds in an
additional 600,000 hectares of land during the wet season in the
country’s “top 10” poorest provinces under Malacañang’s
Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Program.
Another 400,000 hectares of land
will also be planted to certified and hybrid seeds during the wet
season in non-program areas, and another 100,000 hectares will be
identified for the planting of such seeds in other production areas.
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