The Marcos administration is now gearing up the country’s agriculture sector for further mechanization under its new amended Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Korea Agricultural Machinery Industry Cooperative (KAMICO).
During his speech at the ceremonial signing of the said accord in Malacañang last Tuesday, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. stressed the importance of farm mechanization in the government’s goal for “food production self sufficiency.”
“We are trying to make sure that at least the local supply for rice is sufficient and, of course, hopefully, also the other crops,” Marcos said.
“The key to all of this is mechanization and all of the things that we’re trying to do,” he added.
Under the MOU, a local agricultural machinery manufacturing cluster will be created to include an assembly production line, research and development of agricultural machinery technology, workforce training on agricultural machinery technology will be created.
It also has a provision for an Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the exploration of such potential projects.
“A KAMICO official said that an initial investment of US$30 million would be made in phase 1 of the project and triple that amount in the second phase,” the Presidential Communications Office said in a statement.
The country’s MOU with KAMICO was first signed in 2018 before it was “strengthened” and renewed in 2019.
The salient features of the agreement include technical cooperation in research and development, capacity enhancement and the establishment of an agri-machinery manufacturing complex in the country.
KAMICO is a special non-profit cooperative established in 1962 that has over 580 agricultural manufacturer-members in South Korea.
