ILOILO CITY, Feb.3(PIA)—Farmers in Iloilo are keeping up with the challenges of the deluge of agricultural imports, once the ASEAN Integration impacts on the country.
The imports can compete with the local produce and farmers should also be competitive, Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Operations Edilberto de Luna said during a visit here.
“We should make our rice production competitive” de Luna told the farmers in one of the areas he visited.
It can be learned that the quarantine restrictions on imported agricultural products ends by 2017, which means, according to the National food Authority, that products from other ASEAN countries can come in unregulated/
“With high quality inbred and hybrid varieties, the farmers’ production can improve a lot,” de Luna said.
He added that the use of high-yielding varieties, with proper cultural management practices, government’s irrigation programs, mechanization, post harvest facilties, research and development advocacies, farmers can produce competitively well.
The country’s palay production continued to increase with 19 million metric tons in 2014, the highest in the history of palay production in the country.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the country produced about 18.2 million metric tons of rice last year, despite the onslaught of El Niño.
Iloilo is among the top rice producing provinces in the country, a rice self-sufficient province, supplying the needs of rice deficient provinces. (JCM/ESS/PIA-Iloilo)
