DA seeks P12 billion additional budget

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is seeking an additional P12 billion on top of its recommended P95-billion budget for 2022 to address food and agriculture challenges amid the pandemic.

"We are entering a 'New World', the global scale of the 'new normal' as an offshoot of the Covid-19 pandemic, wherein every country in the world is coping with huge challenges. These include the lingering and mutating Covid-19 pandemic, increasing prices of petrol, fertilizers and feeds, climate change, population dynamics, urbanization and aging farmers, and preventing entry of transboundary animal and plant diseases," Agriculture Secretary William Dar said in a statement on Thursday.