Israeli firms offer to fund irrigation projects

MANILA, Philippines — Two Israeli firms have offered to finance the government’s irrigation projects to help improve the country’s rice production.

Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol recently met with Ilan Weiss, chairman and executive director of LR Group of Israel-subsidiary Innovative Agro Industry, who offered to participate in the solar-powered irrigation system program of the Department of Agriculture.

“They could build an estimated 8,000 units of SPIS in partnership with local engineering companies to irrigate 500,000 hectares over the next three to five years,” Piñol said.

Innovative Agro Industry was among the Israeli agriculture firms that met with the  DA to explore possible business opportunities for bilateral cooperation during a recent forum hosted by the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute and the Israel Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.

Innovative Agro Industry also met with Gentromech Engineering Co. for the collaboration in designing the SPIS in Tagum City using Israel technology and design.

The Tagum City SPIS will be the first unit to be constructed using Israel design and technology and will be completed in about three months.

“The Israel design will be less costly than the set up being used by the DA now which requires the construction of a huge reservoir to store water which is then distributed to the fields,” Piñol said.

A world leader in drip irrigation systems and agricultural projects, the local unit of Netafim also agreed to establish demonstration farms for irrigated upland rice and sugarcane farms in several areas in the country.

The upland rice farms, which will be irrigated using the Israeli drip system will be established in North Cotabato and Saranggani while sugarcane farms to be irrigated will be in Negros Occidental, the country’s largest sugar producer.

Initial experiments using drip irrigation in sugarcane farming showed that farmers’ yield increased by more than two-fold.

With a national average production of 54 metric tons per hectare, a farm in Negros can increase its harvest by as much as 160 MT, Netafim said.

Irrigating upland rice will also be done for the first time, where upland rice yields will only be about 1.5 to two MT per hectare per harvest.

“The DA and Netafim would like to determine the increase in upland rice yield when the farm is provided with drip irrigation. Planting of upland rice starts March and April,” Piñol said.

These develop as the Philippines looks at Israel for the development of various technological advancement in the local agriculture sector to improve the country’s farm production.

Piñol earlier said the Philippines would need technology and advice on areas of improving solar-power irrigation system, drone technology for crop protection, dairy farming, aquaculture and fish farming, and greenhouse technology.