Agriculture

Plans for agriculture in the Philippines include making the world’s largest rice consumer, which currently imports the staple, self-sufficient. Multi-million dollar irrigation projects are currently underway to help achieve this goal, while a National Irrigation Administration is seeking to teach farmers sustainable irrigation techniques. The government is also pushing farmers to adopt more commercial approaches to their businesses, forming cooperatives and specialising in high-value subsectors like organics. Finally, the sugarcane industry, facing the prospect of the sugar market being flooded with cheap imports when ASEAN liberalisation kicks in, is looking toward value-added products like bioethanol. This chapter includes interviews with Proceso J Alcala, Secretary, Department of Agriculture; and Rica Davila, Chairman and CEO, Lapanday Foods Corporation.