DA eyes creation of new unit for climate change mitigation

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture (DA) is laying the groundwork for the creation of a Philippine Rainfed Agriculture Institute (Philrai) that will institutionalize strategies of government agencies on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Realizing the growing impact of climate change on food production, particularly crop production, the DA’s High Value Crop (HVC) program is allocating at least 20 percent of its P800 million budget or P160 million for research and development.

Of this amount, the HVC program is earmarking P20 million for R&D activities of the proposed Philrai.

The creation of Philrai was recommended by visiting International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) director and former Agriculture Secretary Dr. William Dar to current Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala during the turnover of new cultivars of sweet sorghum, peanut, and pigeon pea for field testing in the Philippines.

The creation of Philrai will have to be done through legislation and a bill is still being drafted for this purpose.

Philrai is intended to jumpstart efforts to develop crops that are suitable for rainfed areas.

The Philippines has close to two million hectares of rainfed areas that can be planted to dryland crops. HVC national coordination Dante de Lima said the program is setting aside P20 million to jumpstart the Philrai initiative.

“There’s an order from Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala to allocate P20 million for research (on dryland crops). This could jumpstart Philrai,” he said.

In line with the government’s effort to expand food production, Alcala received yesterday from Dr. Dar new cultivars of sweet sorghum, peanut, and pigeon pea for field testing in the Philippines.

According to Dr. Dar, “the Philippine government’s (agriculture) policy for the past 40 years heavily favors rice. While rice is good, it is not enough. Filipinos should have other sources of protein and calories.”

The dryland crops developed by ICRISAT, Dr. Dar said, would also increase the incomes of Filipino farmers.

Icrisat scientists said the Philippines can consider following in the footsteps of other countries such as Myanmar which have started cultivating pigeon pea or “kadios” exported 445,520 metric tons (MT) of pigeon pea mostly to India in 2008.

The street value of the volume exported by Myanmar was around $234 million.