Agriculture

THE Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) expects better results in the next Labor Force Survey (LFS) once the agriculture sector recovers from El Niño, which caused job losses in the first few months of the year.

MANILA, Philippines – President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III is eyeing reforms in the agriculture sector to address the country’s poverty situation. A former agriculture secretary believes the job rests on his administration putting a premium on achieving adequate food security in the Philippines, while ensuring profitability to the country’s farmers.

DANILO Cardenas (left), deputy executive director of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resources Research and Development, discusses with directors of Mindanao research and development (R&D) consortia the priority areas for agri-forestry climate-change adaptation.  The activity was part of the Mindanao R&D climate-change summit held recently in Davao City.

The economic advisers of President Aquino, if drawn from the same cloth and mind set of the Arroyo advisers, would feed him tons upon tons of hogwash about agriculture.

MANILA, Philippines – The agriculture sector shrank by 2.84 percent in the first quarter as a result of the prolonged drought.

BACOLOD CITY—SUGAR PLANTATION WORKERS in Negros Occidental are being harassed into voting for the choice candidates of planters in yet another manifestation of how slave-like the workers’ conditions are.

The highest incidence of poverty is found in our agriculture and fishing sectors, according to the National Economic Development Authority statistics. Oxfam, in their 2008 report Harnessing Agriculture for Development, pointed out: “Across a wide spectrum of countries…from Cambodia and the Philippines to Pakistan…investment in agriculture is still considered highly relevant due to the high…

MANILA, Philippines – The Alyansa Agrikultura, a farmer-fisherfolk coalition of 42 national and local federations and organizations representing all the major agriculture sector, has submitted a “wish-list” for an agri-fishery action agenda to all presidential candidates in the May elections.

In response to readers’ comments on our column on agriculture problems in the country, the Department of Agriculture through Undersecretary and Chief of Staff Atty. Bernie Fondevilla sent this letter. In the interest of hearing all sides, we are printing it.

The government has confirmed an increase of almost half a billion pesos in damage to the farm and fishery sectors caused by lingering effects of the El Niño weather phenomenon.

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna, Philippines — Still a biotechnology “mega-country”. The Philippines planted genetically modified (GM) corn in 450,00 hectares in 2009, sustaining its ranking in the league of the world’s biotech “mega-countries”.

MANILA, Philippines – Crop damage due to the ongoing drought has climbed to P11.19 billion as of March 1 from the P7.02 billion reported as of Feb. 22, according to the latest report prepared by the Department of Agriculture’s Central Action Center (DACAC).

The Department of Agriculture (DA) announced Thursday it has developed a master plan for helping farmers counter the negative effects of dry spell brought on by El Niño on their crops.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture (DA) said the full implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA)- Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme this year will benefit the agriculture sector.

MANILA, Philippines – Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap expressed confidence yesterday that the agriculture sector managed to post a slight growth last year in spite of the back-to-back devastation caused by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng.

MANILA, Philippines – Despite a higher budget of P47 billion – fourth biggest in this year’s national budget – growth in the agriculture sector almost ground to a halt as two devastating typhoons and the global economic meltdown took their toll on the sector.

LEGAZPI CITY: The emerging climate change phenomenon threatens the Philippines’ vital agricultural crops and natural resources, a Japanese scientist told the International Conference on Climate Change Adaptation Science and Technology here. A pool of scientists from various state universities throughout the country convened in this city through the initiative of Bicol Consortium for Agriculture Resources…

ORGANIC farming advocates have called on the Department of Agriculture to integrate disaster preparedness and risk reduction by funding programs that will make farming resilient to natural calamities. Lawyer Efren Moncupa, lead convenor of Go Organic! Philippines said the government should “allocate adequate fund for disaster preparedness, to reduce risk of losing billions of pesos…

CABANATUAN CITY, Philippines – President Arroyo will condone some P5 billion worth of unpaid irrigation service fees (ISFs) and irrigation loan amortizations of farmers as a legacy to the farming sector, it was learned here yesterday.

P5-B rural infrastructure plans partly funded by ADB   ATOTAL of P5-billion rural infrastructure projects funded with assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that aims to combat poverty in 779 of the country’s poorest municipalities are currently being implemented by the Department of Agriculture, an official said Monday.

For the next nine months, forget the grand investment plans crafted by the government technocrats. They would merely drain whatever limited investment funds the state has. They are about long-gestating projects; no fruits within the short term. They would favor cronies and Big Business.

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines has been known as a traditional exporter of coconut products particularly coconut oil, copra, desiccated coconut and copra meal; fresh fruit products such as pineapples, bananas and mangoes; as well as fishery products led by tuna and prawns.

The migration of youth from the provinces [promdi] to urban centers could threaten further the country’s food security as most of them come from farming communities,” a party-list lawmaker said on Monday.

MANILA, Philippines – Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap told herbal industry leaders that the government would help increase linkages between raw material producers and manufacturers to ensure the quality, reliability and safety of Filipino herbal products.

MANILA, Philippines – As admitted by Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap, agricultural output for the first quarter is showing mixed results with preliminary data gathered by The STAR indicating that while the fisheries sector managed to post a growth of four percent from January to March this year, corn production has posted a negative 2.56…

MANILA, Philippines – Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap expects the growth results for the first quarter to be mixed due to the uncertain weather pattern and recent events that are impacting food production.

A food export leader has called on the Arroyo government to take the current crisis as a platform to institute lasting reforms in the farm sector, the first of which is a permanent ban on the conversion of irrigated and prime agriculture lands to non-agricultural uses.

MANILA, Philippines – Agriculture will replace electronics as the country’s biggest export if the government will not be able to develop sophisticated infrastructure that will prevent big ticket investors like Texas Instruments from leaving the country in the next five years, an economist said yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – Green as far as the eye can see. This is what greets farmers every day at the Leonie Agri Corp. (LAC) farm, a 42-hectare verdant tract in the northern Nueva Ecija town of Sta. Rosa.

MANILA, Philippines – Various groups have banded together to form a new organization called One Organic Movement that will work for the development of organic agriculture in the Philippines.