Agriculture

BEYOND ELLIPTICAL By Rose Marie de la Cruz I agree with the observation of IBON Foundation Inc.’s Sonny Africa about the rollout of P20 per kg of rice in the Visayas as just a “temporary fix” for which consumers have to be thankful, but that long term solutions like supporting small farmers are what is needed for food security and improving …

Former Department of Agriculture  Secretary William Dar described the  first quarter growth of only of 1 percent  in agriculture this year as modest.  “It could have been better as the crops sector benefited from favorable weather,”  claimed Dar and other analysts, citing  the agriculture’s growth came from a low base last year due to El Nino. But DA Secretary Francisco …

The forest cover of the Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape (UMRBPL) has significantly increased by 400 hectares from 2010 to 2020, a Department of Environment and Natural Resources official reported. DENR CALABARZON Regional Executive Director Nilo Tamoria said UMRBPL’sforest is now 44.37 percent bigger because of the continuous implementation of the National Greening Program (NGP) in the 26,000-hectare Protected …

Due to the rising  coconut oil prices, Filipino consumers are shifting to cheaper palm oil for cooking. The rising cost of coconut oil in the domestic market has been flagged by international observers and even by the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) as a factor that could affect consumption of the commodity and drive food prices up this year, Philippine Star …

By Rose de la Cruz Every administration talks about national greening, reforestation and environmental preservation and conservation– some of them in tandem with the business sector– but after each administration, the best results come only from those that use the local community in reforested area to care for the program. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources, under Secretary Maria …

BEYOND ELLIPTICAL By Rose Marie de la Cruz I got confused reading the business papers, particularly on the rice stockpile last March.  The Business Mirror headline said Phl. rice stockpile expands in March. But the Business World headline read: the national rice inventory at the start of March fell 19.6% month on month. Mind you both are quoting the same …

Agrilever, an agri tech company, announced it would soon launch more programs for rice farmers  this year after it rolled out an app that gives insights about crop management protocols and advanced weather intelligence.  The company said this app can assist rice farmers in mitigating the effects of sudden and extreme weather changes. Planters can also get notified on tasks …

Abaca farmers, who have long enjoyed a ready and stable market in government– through the peso bills printed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas– have been losing this same market with the shift to imported polymer plastics in the P1,000 banknotes now being circulated in the country. Another source of support for abaca farmers is the passport, which can use …

As if the setback it suffered from the massive non-compliance by hog traders/retailers of the maximum suggested retail price for pork, the Department of Agriculture is now expanding its MSRP experiment on eggs and garlic in the hope of better results. By now, the DA must realize that even with rice and other items before, it had miserably failed in …

Piqued by the non-compliance by retailers of the maximum suggested retail price for pork, the Department of Agriculture will pilot test a “tracing system” that would give retailers a card containing information about the hogs they would be selling. The card would contain information like origin of the farm, the traders, the transporters and other levels of the logistic chain. …