PH, US agree to create ministerial team on agri cooperation

WASHINGTON - The Philippines and the United States agreed to set up a ministerial team on agricultural cooperation.

This, as President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., who also sits as Agriculture chief, prioritizes food efficiency and security under his governance. 

As part of his official visit to the US, Marcos had a meeting with the country's Department of Agriculture officials, led by Secretary Thomas Vilsack.

Marcos said the meeting with the US DA is important because "there are things that we are hoping to be able to partner with the United States when it comes to the agricultural sector.”

"As we had started to plan our way out of the pandemic economy, even the financial experts, we would talk about the economy, we would talk about the more strictly financial aspects of the development economy, we still keep coming back to agriculture and we cannot do all of the things that we would like to do for our economy if our agriculture is not --- there are agricultural system --- is not strengthened,” Marcos said.

Marcos sought to improve mutually beneficial agreements to strengthen agriculture research for development, capacity-building initiatives specific to the advancement of biotechnology agenda in the country, as well as expanding market access for Philippine agricultural products to the US.

The USDA, for its part, also aimed to strengthen knowledge transfer between Manila and Washington as well as continued cooperation on agriculture innovation systems.

“(We’re) looking forward to an initiative where a number of your professors… will be coming to the United States, will be exposed to our own university system… so they in turn take it back to the Philippines,” a USDA official said.

Meanwhile, Marcos expressed hope that the upcoming Food Security Dialogue on May 5 would improve cooperation on capacity-building and technology support as the country works together to build effective and efficient supply chains, exports, and value-chain development of agricultural commodities. —VAL, GMA Integrated News