PH, PNG SIGN AGREEMENT
ON AGRI COOPERATION
Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea – The Philippines and the Independent State of Papua New Guinea yesterday signed the Memoramdum of Agreement on Agricultural Cooperation in the midst of a ricefield developed as a demo farm by farmers from the Philippines.
The signing of the agreement came a year after President Rody Duterte met with PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neil in the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Council (APEC) Forum in Danang, Vietnam where PNG asked Philippine support in developing its rice industry.
In February this year, the Department of Agriculture sent a technical team to PNG to conduct a site validation.
Nineteen farmers from North Cotabato Province arrived in Port Moresby in August and worked on a 25-hectare demo farm inside the Pacific Adventist University Compound.
When the MOA was signed between the PNG Agriculture Minister Benny Allen and the Philippine Secretary of Agriculture in the middle of the demo farm yesterday, the rice planted by Filipino farmers was already in the reproductive stage and ready for harvest by the end of December.
With the signing yesterday, Filipino companies could now engage local counterparts in agricultural projects.
Rice production is the main commodity where the investments are expected to be focused on.
The Governor of a province has offered an initial 50,000 hectares of uncultivated land beside a huge river.
He said as much as 2-million hectares could be developed into rice farms in his province.
Under the arrangement, rice produced by Filipino farmers will be absorbed by the local market and the excess could exported to the Philippines.
The rice requirement of PNG is about 400,000 metric tons every year.
The Philippines, on the other hand, imports about 1-million metric tons every year.
(Photos taken by Diane Faith Garcia)
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