The Department of Agriculture, a vital government agency tasked with producing food for 105-million Filipinos, will be getting a bigger chunk of the national financial pie in 2018, President Rody Duterte promised Monday.
During the discussions in the Monday’s Cabinet meeting where the newly-developed Solar-Powered Irrigation System was discussed, President Duterte said that the Dept. of Agriculture would be given a bigger budget to support its food production program.
“You will get a big budget for 2018,” he said referring to me, the Secretary of Agriculture, who was seated beside him during the Cabinet meeting.
Among the priority areas for funding and development are the establishment of Fisheries facilities like fish ports, cold storage and ice-making facilities and fishing gears for poor fishing folks; farm mechanisation including post harvest faciities; completion of the 3,500-kilometer farm to market road network; and the establishment of big and small irrigation projects, especially the Solar-Powered Irrigation System.
For 2017, only P46-B was allocated for the Dept. of Agriculture placing it in the 9th slot among the major departments with big budgets.
The reduction of the budget of the DA was mainly due to the inability of the department to absorb and utilise the huge funds given to it in the past.
With the bigger budget committed by President Duterte for 2018, the DA expects to achieve staple food sufficiency in three years.
Fish supply is also expected to be stabilised as the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources wages a relentless campaign against illegal fishing while supporting small fishermen with fishing gears and establishing fish port facilities.
Already, the country’s corn program expects a surplus harvest in 2017 enabling the country to look at the prospect of export corn to neighbouring countries.
The country’s livestock and dairy programs are also expected to receive a boost from the bigger budget for 2018.
President Duterte was especially pleased with the development of the Solar-Powered Irrigation System which he said will revolutionise Philippine agriculture.
At least 150 units of Solar-Powered Irrigation Systems capable of irrigating 100 hectares per module are expected to be established in the different regions of the country this year alone.
(File photos sourced from public websites.)
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