Philippines keen to grow rice production to meet demand

THE Philippines government, a major rice investor in the country, is ready to assist PNG produce rice to meet local demands and even surplus for export, an official says.
Philippines Ambassador to PNG Bien Tejano said this during a launching to establish a model rice farm at the Pacific Adventist University (PAU) Campus outside Port Moresby on Friday.
The launching was done by Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Benny Allan, Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel, Central Governor Robert Agarobe, Vice-Chancellor for PAU Dr Raul Lozano, acting Secretary for Agriculture Department Francis Daikin and Tejano.
Tejano said establishing the model rice farm was a partnership between the PNG Government through the Department of Agriculture and Livestock and the Philippines government through the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in collaboration with PAU, Sustainable Agrifood Production (PNG) Ltd and Sta. Ross Food Products Corporation.
“This is an outcome of bilateral meetings between the prime ministers of the two countries during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Vietnam last year and the recent visit by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and the Minister for Agriculture to the Philippines early this year.
“With the model farm established, I am confident that major commercial rice farm with downstream processing will be established in the country very soon to meet local demands and even export surplus overseas,” he said.
Tejano said Philippines has already put its hand up to import rice from PNG.
The model farm is done on a 25- hectare land offered by PAU under a partnership arrangement and will see downstream processing of rice as well as production of rice seeds.
Abel thanked the Philippines government for its support and highlighted that global agriculture produce was under threat due to the impacts of climate change and PNG must be able to produce its own food and not depend too much on imports.
“We have been talking too much on the need to produce our own food rather than depending so much on imports and some of these discussions have finally come to fruition already like the downstream production of dairy milk at the Ilimo Farm outside Port Moresby,” he said.
Abel said Prime Minister Peter O’Neill was providing strong leadership to drive change in the agriculture sector and the Government was committed to partner investors from the Philippines to drive large-scale commercial rice farms and downstream production in the country to meet local demands and export any surplus.