Thousands of corn growers and stakeholders gathered for the staging of the 12th National Corn Congress from November 14-November 16, 2016 at Koronodal City, South Cotabato.
The Department of Agriculture, in partnerships with the Philippine Maize Federation Inc. (PhilMaize) and other concerned agencies, hosted the three-day event.
The event, themed “Sulong Maisan! Sapat na Pagkain ng Bayan,” calls for unified actions from the government and private sector for a more progressive and sustainable corn sector.
“This is in line with the directives of the President and Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol to provide Filipino consumers available and affordable food,” Assistant Secretary Federico Laciste said.
PhilMaize President Roger Navarro said the congress aims to file a resolution to create Philippine Corn Development Authority, which will be the separate policy body for corn program.
At present the National Food Authority (NFA) is the responsible for the monitoring of prices on corn.
Navarro noted that for so long, NFA failed to provide the needs of the corn farmers as corn is considered as least important in the Food Security Chart.
Corn growers are also hopeful that restrictions for corn in the World Trade market will be lessen. Navarro said that one of the challenges of the corn industry is the competition in the international markets.
“Sana kung pwede tayo mag-import, pwede rin tayo mag-export,” Navarro said.
Some of the issues to be discussed in the congress were farm yield and cost, market linkages and post harvest technology.
“Our farmers needs precise farming through technology provided by DA and trainings of extension workers from ATI,” Navarro said.
Corn production posted improvement with 7.53 million metric tons record in 2015 and an average growth rate of 3.5 percent per year. This figure is expected to grow as DA awaited investment from neighbor countries like China and Japan.
As highlight of the congress, the 4th National Quality Corn Achievers’ Awards was held on November 16, to give due recognition to the key players of the corn industry.
One hundred agricultural extension workers, 14 municipal/city corn coordinators, 19 municipal/city agriculturists, 6 provincial corn coordinators, and 5 provincial agriculturists were awarded with plaque and cash prizes for their invaluable contribution to the improvement of the local corn production.
DA also granted P3 million (M) worth of projects to 5 outstanding provinces and P1M worth of projects to 19 municipalities/cities who have reached higher corn production in 2015.
More than P45M in cash prizes were given away. Twenty four corn farms also received recognition for adopting the Good Agricultural Practices in their farms. ###(Kristel Merle, DA-AFID)
