(Last Part of my presentation in the International Webinar on Modern Irrigation and Fertigation Technology in Tropical Regions sponsored by the Mashav of Israel, May 5, 2021)
As Secretary of Agriculture from June 2016 to July 2019, I advocated for the institutionalization of the National Water Management and Conservation Program and introduced the Solar-Powered Irrigation System, along with other non-traditional irrigation methods like the Ram Pump.
I proposed that just like Israel, the Philippines should harness its water resources by protecting its watersheds and river headwaters, building dams and water catchments and implementing a massive Solar-Powered Irrigation System Project which would provide water to the vast farmlands where farmers could plant only once a year.
With limited resources to implement the SPIS Program, the Department of Agriculture was only able to build about 200 units irrigating a limited area but the accounts of farmers who benefitted from the program were very encouraging.
It was a challenging mission because while the SPIS technology had long been embraced by modern agricultural countries, my critics who wanted to portray me as an incompetent Agriculture Secretary questioned the program.
Even with the public support of President Rody Duterte for the technology who launched the first working unit in 2017, funds for the SPIS National Program was limited because of the lack of understanding by fiscal managers of the program.
The DA under my leadership was not deterred.
To pursue this, I engaged an Israel company, LR Group, to help us craft a national program for Solar irrigation and assist in accessing foreign funds to implement the program.
The Embassy of Israel in the Philippines through Ambassador Rafael Harpaz supported the project by assisting in the sourcing of funds.
A loan portfolio of the equivalent of P44-B was arranged by the Israeli Government to be granted on concessionary interest rates to the Philippine Government.
The plan was to irrigate 500,000-hectares of rice and high value crops farms all over the country and complete the project before the end of the term of President Duterte.
The arithmetic was very simple: Irrigate 500,000-hectares of rice farms to allow two harvest a year and achieve a production of 6-metric tons per hectare per year.
The 6-million metric tons of paddy rice when milled with recovery of 60% is equivalent to 3.6-million metric tons of milled rice, a volume more than enough to cover the country’s production shortfall and accomplish the Rice Self-Sufficiency Program.
To show its commitment to the program, LR Group donated and established two prototypes of the SPIS with fertigation technology in Lumban, Laguna.
The Office of the President organized a team composed of officials of the DA, National Economic and Development Authority, Department of Budget and Management, the National irrigation Administration and other agencies to finalize the SPIS National Program.
Today, 3 years after the SPIS National Program was conceptualized and two years after I resigned as Secretary of Agriculture and take on the Chairmanship of the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), the program is in the doldrums.
Instead of fast tracking the completion of the documents needed to access the P44-B to implement the Solar-Powered Irrigation System National Program, the bureaucratic agencies have slept on a very critical project.
To fill up the local production shortfall, the fiscal managers convinced the President that the easiest way to achieve lower prices of rice was through unimpeded importation from Vietnam and other countries.
While I have left the agency which could have effectively implemented the program, I have made a Choice and that is to continue with my advocacy for a National Water Management and Conservation Program, even just in Mindanao.
The Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) which I now head will pursue this dream as it has already crafted the Mindanao Water Supply Program.
The MinDA Water Supply Program aims to assist local government units in accessing funding and project design for the establishment of Solar-Powered Water and Irrigation Systems in all towns and villages in Mindanao.
This program is coupled with the Green Mindanao Project, another program which I personally conceptualized, which promotes the planting of high value fruit trees in the deforested and denuded highlands of Mindanao.
One town in Lanao del Sur, Taraka, had already enrolled in the program and it is now building one Solar-Powered Water System with filtration and six units of SPIS to irrigate its rice farms utilizing funds accessed from the Development Bank of the Philippines.
Soon, the rice farmers of Taraka will be harvesting at least twice a year and boost their rice production while the 25,000 residents of the town would no longer draw water from the Taraka River for their needs but from a modern water system equipped with a filtration machine freeing them from health risks caused by unsafe water.
The people of Taraka, all Muslims, will soon have a better life and it is all because their leaders made a Choice.
#WaterIsEssentialToLife!
#FoodGrowsWhereWaterFlows!
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