Despite the affordable and available food goal of the Duterte Administration, the country is currently on a US$3 million shortage in vegetable per year.
“Right now, we have a US$3 million a year shortage in vegetable. We are expecting a big market. It is expected to be US$3 billion to be generated in the Asia Pacific in 2021,” said Agriculture
Undersecretary Jose Gabriel “Pompee” La Viña during the 17th National Vegetable Congress held in the city yesterday.
“We are hoping to export but we are currently after being self-sufficient first since there is a shortage,” said
Hence, the Department of Agriculture is gearing up on two areas in agriculture – the productivity and income of farmers.
“We really face two challenges in agriculture – productivity is one, the other is the income of the farmers,” La Viña
“Productivity is a question of proper technologies which is knowledge and also capital that’s why we provide for that. The other one is the question of, example access to credit also, yung access to market na direct na rather than dadaan pa ng middleman,” La Viña added.
Meanwhile, Councilor Marissa Salvador-Abella said the city is currently arranging with a cooperative in China for a possible market in the latter.
In this framework, the city will provide the land, labor and security while the Chinese government will provide the funds, technology and market.
“The reason China will buy from here is because it is a huge country but only has 10% arable land. Plus their weather has winter. It is an opportunity for our farmers especially the indigenous people since they are a lot of ancestral domains,” said Salvador-Abella.
Davao City is the first to join the project throughout the Philippines.
