January 16, 2025

Emmanuel "Manny" F. Piñol

Official Website

Initial Funds P17-B! Solar-Powered Irrigation Gets Substantial DA Funds

Manny Piñol April 21, 2024 2 min read

Exactly eight years after the Solar-Powered irrigation System was launched in my hometown in M’lang, Cotabato, the Department of Agriculture has finally recognized it a vital program to attain increased rice production and allocated an initial funding of P17-B.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., in a recently issues Memorandum has organized Project Preparation Team for the Solar-Powered Irrigation System Program headed by Undersecretary for Special Concerns Jerome Oliveros.
The SPIS Project Preparation Team also includes Undersecretary for High Value Crops Cherrie Marie Natividad-Caballeero as Co-Chairperson, Asst. Sec. Arnel de Mesa as Vice Chairperson and Bureau of Soils and Water Management Director Gina Nilo as team leader.
The organization of the SPIS Project Preparation Team comes after Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared two months ago that “the government will undertake a nationwide solar-powered irrigation program to help achieve its goal of rice self-sufficiency.”
In a ceremonial palay harvesting in Barangay Mandili, Candaba, Pampanga, Pres. Marcos said the SPIS Program is projected “to add about 180,000 hectares of irrigable land or about 1.2 million metric tons (MT) in rice production.”
“Because if we are talking about rice, irrigation is really an important factor so that all areas will have three cropping (cycles in a year),” the President was quoted by the Philippine Star, noting that the Philippines imports about 3.5 million MT of rice every year.
“To increase rice production this year, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has allotted P17 billion for the Philippine Solar Irrigation Project and P1.2 billion for the construction and improvement of small-scale irrigation projects, according to a statement released by the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) yesterday,” the Philippine Star reported.
The initial P17-B funding is way below the original proposal of the DA submitted to the Development Budget Coordinating Committeee (DBCC) submitted in 2018 but it is nonetheless the biggest funding given to the program since it was adopted as a DA Banner Program.
This development is a pleasing development for those who joined me in initiating the introduction of the SPIS Technology to Philippine Agriculture in 2017 and a great news for the country’s rice farmers whose productivity had been hampered by the lack of irrigation facilities.
#ContinuityIsKeyToProsperity!
(Photo shows the first operational Solar-Powered Irrigation System (SPIS) established by the Dept. of Agriculture in 2018 in Manubuan, Matalam, Cotabato.)

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