Rice, coconut, mango, abaca top priority in technology intervention

Rice, coconut, mango, abaca top priority in technology intervention

Rice, coconut, mango bamboo, and abaca were named top priority commodities for technology intervention over the long term with a P19.45-billion budget under the Philippine Agriculture (PA) 2020 program to be launched by government this semester.

Dr. Albert P. Aquino, Socio-Economics Research director of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry, Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was set to have launched PA 2020 last December.

But industry and government players collaborating on the long-term plan are putting final touches on the apolitical farm roadmap aimed to be sustainable until 2020 as originally envisioned by the National Academy for Science and Technology (NAST).

“This brings a big plan that integrates government agencies’ plans with the industries. It should be sustainable (amid administration changes). It will organize agriculture as a business,” said Aquino.

From consultations with inter-agencies — industry representatives, farmers’ cooperatives, government institutions — PA 2020 has come up with 14 agro-industry clusters.

These are rice and white corn, sugarcane, coconut and palm oil, export fruits, coffee, abaca, vegetables with legumes and root crops, ornamentals, herbal crops, pasture-ruminants, feed corn, livestock and poultry, capture fisheries, culture fisheries, and forestry.

But of these, the top five crops will have priority for science and technology intervention.

For the P18.6-billion rice program, unmilled rice output will increase from 14.6 million metric tons (MT) in 2005 to 17.61 million MT in 2020 owing to high-yielding varieties (HYV) that will bring a milled rice output of 11.8 million MT.

The higher milled output is also derived from increased milling recovery rate from 65 percent to 67 percent using state-of-theart mills as use in rice-exporting Vietnam.

For coconut, a P570 million program is planned to raise declining yield from one MT per hectare to an average of two MT per hectare per year as a result of HYV that will be planted on 100,000 hectares.

Modernization of copra processing, fertilization program for the same area, establishment of 24,600 seednuts/nursery, and government’s partnership with private funders are all hoped to raise productivity and expand the existing 75 million old and unproductive coconut trees.

Coconut will be sustained as an export winner with emerging high value products like coconut biodiesel, virgin coconut oil, coconut sap sugar, wine, and coir fiber. For this, 1,500 copra dyers nationwide should be efficiently operated while 20,000 kukum dryers will be put up.

Kukum dryers allow copra (coconut meat) to have a low moisture content to meet world market’s, speciallly Europe’s, demand for minimum (cancer-causing) aflatoxin level.

Mango is aimed to emerge from competition with Mexico and India as it increases yield from six MT per hectare to 12 MT per hectare through manipulation of flowering, flushing, and fruiting.

The program will raise export by at least 10 percent to million through improved cultivar through genetic engineering (delayed ripening mango, disease-free mango), integrated crop management, and fertilization.

Cutting post-harvest loss from the present 30 percent to a targeted 10 percent is also an important component of raising mango productivity.

This loss will be cut through commercialization of controlled atmosphere which preserves mango for long-distance shipment over 30 days and the establishment of packing-houses with good post-harvest practices.

Abaca will have a P222 million budget that will raise planted area from 136,000 hectares as of 2005 to 168,800 hectares in 2020 through planting of HYV and disease-free seedlings. Fiber production will be raised from 78,000 MT to 151,800 MT and raise export of abaca products from 19,000 MT in 2005 to 26,500 MT.

Other interventions are the development of transgenic or irradiated mosaic or bunchy-top resistant abaca seedlings, mechanization of fiber extraction that will raise fiber recovery, and geographical clustering for abaca growers to become producers and marketing cooperatives.

A P25 million budget for bamboo poles will expand the country’s bamboo plantations by 30,000 hectares for three years through good species, establishment of pilot plantations and nurseries, and development of technologies for processing bamboo. This will supply the Philippines’ deficit of 14 million bamboo culms per year and raise Philippines’ handicraft export of 0 million as of 2000 .

Bamboo is an important raw material in furniture and handicraft industries which make use of bamboo by 40 percent of their total raw material requirements. (mb.com.ph)

http://www.craftandfurniture.com/2006/03/05/
rice-coconut-mango-abaca-top-priority-in-technology-intervention/