With the primary objective of producing enough food within the locality, the Department of Agriculture (DA) opened the Municipal and City Cluster-wide Food Security Summit with the theme “Mamayan Ko, Pakakainin Ko” at the Philippine international Convention Center in Pasay City on October 3, 2018.
“The moral obligation of leaders is to be able to feed his people,” Agriculture Secretary Manny F. Piñol stressed.
Municipal and City mayors, agriculture officers, administrators, planning officers, DA officials and private sectors from Cordillera Administrative Region, Regions I, II, and III gathered together to participate in the formulation of a National Food Security Plan.
The summit seeks to draw out realistic and practical plan, which will serve as basis of programs and expenditures for 2020 and beyond.
“This administration is determined to achieve food security in this country and we will able to achieve that by partnering with you,” Piñol explained.
“Submit our food security plan in the congress, get the budget. Follow that plan for the next five years,” he added.
With proper guidance from their respective regional directors, the security plan contained needs and the capacity of the local community to produce food, total food consumption of the community, potentials and possible outsourcing food supply, and needed support from the government to facilitate plan execution.
“We do not have food shortage in this country. Our problem is food positioning,” Piñol said.
He also directed local officials to include water and management conservation program in their plan. This will determine municipal and city watershed areas, and possible areas where the government can establish small water impounding, and sources of water ideal for solar-powered irrigation systems, windmill and pumps.
“We want to harmonize all the program of DA,” he added.
During the summit, Regional Director and Cluster Head Roy M. Abaya presented the agricultural background of Northern Luzon, which has a total agricultural area measuring to 1.214 hectares (ha). The cluster produced high volume of rice (45%), corn (37%), lowland (54%) and upland (85%) vegetables, onion (50%), chicken (44%), eggs (27%), milkfish (44%), tilapia (60%), hogs, tiger prawns, cabbage and mangoes.
As such, Northern Luzon was able to contribute P430 billion (B) to the latest Gross Regional Domestic Product and 28.18% share to the national agri-Gross Domestic Product. It also accounts for P384 B current Gross Value Added in Agriculture or or 28.91% national share.
After the presentation, Piñol said the department will be focusing in increasing meat production for the Northern Luzon. He noted the cluster produced so much corn but lack supply of meat.
Thru this summit, the government will be able to identify areas that produce excess of certain commodities and identify areas that lack certain commodities.
DA will conduct a similar summit for Southern Luzon, Mindanao, and Visayas on October 4, 5, 9 respectively. ### (Kristel Merle, DA-AFID)
