Agriculture

By Rose de la Cruz First, the Marcos administration clinched a five-year rice supply deal with Vietnam, now our top supplier of the staple, last January Next the Department of Agriculture negotiated for a rice deal with India and Cambodia and now with Pakistan, which it hopes to finalize by June next year. The message is clear:  the DA is …

Beyond EllipticalBy Rose Marie de la Cruz The legacy of agrarian reform– breaking down farms into smaller sizes of initially 3 to 5 hectares– have forced farmers to sell or pawn their landholdings as they found farming to be not viable and unsustainable. In worse times, like previous decades, they offered their small landholdings to land conversion for easy cash, …

The bangus industry is grappling with several challenges that have prevented it from achieving its full potential. University of Asia and Pacific Center for Food and Agribusiness (CFA) Agribusiness Specialist Joy Kristel Orzales said one of the main issues confronting the sector is its continued reliance on imported fry, Business Mirror noted. Orzales noted that high dependence on imported fry tends …

The massive destruction caused by recent typhoons on corn farms of the country and the high cost of production would necessitate higher imports of corn for animal feeds  by 7.2 percent or 1.63 million metric tons for 2024-2025, according to the USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service in Manila. The USDA also sees corn production only growing by 0.4 percent to 8.15 MMT …

Blame it on high rice prices– both local and imports– Pinoys are now shifting to bread and noodles for their regular diet. The Philippines is expected to import more wheat in the 2024-2025 marketing year as the demand for various products such as bread, cakes and noodles increased along with population growth, said the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural …

By Rose de la Cruz The idea of removing labels like imported rice and premium or special tags in rice sold in all markets is just an affirmation of the lingering colonial mindset of Filipinos when buying products like food, specifically rice as it gives them an image of being well-off than the rest of the hoi polo in their …

By Rose de la Cruz The massive destruction caused by recent typhoons on corn farms of the country and the high cost of production would necessitate higher imports of corn for animal feeds of by 7.2 percent or 1.63 million metric tons for 2024-2025, according to the USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service in Manila. The USDA also sees corn production only growing …

Beyond Diliman By Rose Marie de la Cruz Since Martial Law, I had been covering the Department of Agriculture and its agencies, including the National Food Authority, and I could say that back then the country went through a most embarrassing rice crisis (with long queues and no stocks), which was in a large part due to mismanagement and patronage …

The Department of Agriculture is pushing for the use of organic fertilizer after decades of massive chemical fertilizer usage has degraded 80 percent of the country’s farm lands, DA Operations Undersecretary Roger Navarro stressed the need to foster awareness  that soil degradation comes from the abused use of inorganic fertilizer. “Our estimate [for soil degradation] is we’re at least already …

The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) asked the government to expedite the approval of the African Swine Fever (ASF) vaccine for commercial use, to ensure a speedy recovery of hog farming. “We hope that the (Food and Drug Administration) approves the vaccine,” SINAG Chairman Rosendo O. So said at a briefing. The Department of Agriculture (DA) said the approval for …