KORONADAL CITY—The Philippines should be rice self-sufficient in the next two years to be ready against the adverse effects of climate change, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said.
Climate change, he stressed, makes everything unpredictable for Philippine agriculture, thus, every farmer must be prepared.
“We need to attain rice sufficiency in the next two years and achieve buffer stocks for rice six months before the Duterte administration ends,” Piñol told local officials in his speech during South Cotabato’s 50th foundation anniversary.
Piñol, Interior Secretary Ismael D. Sueño and Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana, all from South Cotabato, were guest speakers.
“We do not know when the next El Niño would hit us. How long it would hit us? How wide the area would be?” Piñol asked.
In a worst-case scenario, Piñol asked, if Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia will experience severe drought, where would the Philippines import rice?
The Department of Agriculture (DA) chief said rice sufficiency can be achieved with the government providing necessary assistance to farmers.
“We will support the farmers by providing free seeds and free fertilizers for the next cropping terms,” he said.
Piñol reminded farmers that they should deposit in a bank the equivalent amount of the production inputs given to them by the department so that, when the next cropping season begins, money is readily available to buy seeds and fertilizers.
He also urged local governments to determine the total rice production in their area for the agency to know the number of bags of production inputs will be given to them in 2017.
“If we need to put up a communal irrigation project there, we will do that. If you need water pumps, as well as preharvest and postharvest machine, we will give you that,” he said.
Piñol said the DA under stewardship will veer away from building huge irrigation projects worth billions of pesos, which he said have been causing detrimental effects to the environment.
So much was spent for the multi-billion peso Malitubog-Maridagao irrigation project in North Cotabato and, yet, it has not been producing enough irrigation the farmers need.
“When President Duterte appointed me as his agriculture secretary, he has only two mandates. First, to stop corruption in the agency, and ensure that there is affordable and available food for every Filipino,” he said.
Piñol was convinced there were corruption cases in the DA. “If there’s no corruption in the DA, there will be enough funds for everybody since the agency is one of the departments given with huge budget allocation annually,” he said.
On his way to General Santos City on the same day, he found more than P100 million worth of equipment stockpiled and rusting at the DA-12 compound in Tupi, South Cotabato.
He has ordered a probe into the failure to distribute the equipment to farmer beneficiaries.