By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
The second edition of the World Food Forum (WFF) was just held at the Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome, Italy from October 17-21, 2022.
The opening ceremonies was addressed by no less than 7 presidents/prime minister from Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. At least 2 youth leaders from Africa and the Pacific also spoke during the opening program, to emphasize the role of the youths in the fight for food security, climate change and other important issues.
One of the three other keynote speakers was no other than our former DA Sec. Dr. William D. Dar. Of course, he will never be invited to such very important event if he did not perform well in his jobs.
The participation of the heads of states is a sure sign that the forum is very, very important to the whole world. Only the best are invited to speak.
I registered for the forum as a virtual participant in the comfort of my home and attended several presentations including those of the opening program. The forum was worth attending as it provided me with so much learning that I could actually parlay many of them into my practice of agriculture and as a private citizen.
The presence of Dar as one of the keynote speakers is a testament of his contribution in world agriculture, and recognizes his accomplishments in local agriculture. He was introduced only as a former secretary of the Philippine department of agriculture. He was of course, a former director General of the prestigious International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in Patancheru, Hyderabad, India where he served for 15 years. He was the longest-tenured among all those who served as director-general in the 15 or so centers/institute (that included IRRI) around the world.
The sterling performance of Dr. Dar as an agriculture honcho, although recognized even internationally, seems nothing to some. One wonders why. Selfish interest being affected is a sure shot.
His performance as our agriculture secretary was duly monitored and subjected to some evaluation by foreign experts. Apparently, his management was found to be more than good that’s why he was invited to share his experiences to a worldwide community.
Among others, Dr. Dar shared that during his watch of two and a half years, local agriculture could be described as, among others, having a scaled up farm mechanization, increased credit extension, and distribution of quality seeds. He further said that the use of high yielding varieties, especially hybrids, was a game changer. That’s why, according to him, the fruits of those moves are starting to bear fruit. In fact, in 2021, the Philippines reached the highest ever rice self-sufficiency of 92%.
A few days ago, senator Cynthia Villar questioned the use of hybrid seeds, instead of inbred varieties. She was bashed in the social media by a lot of Filipino farmers and supporters of local farming. She was even perceived as anti-farmer. Of course, the senator was fuming over the plan to import hybrid seeds. She may have a point there.
The good senator had been a chairperson of the senate committee on agriculture for a long, long time. She could have done so much in her legislative work to breathe more verve into the upliftment of our agriculture industry in general. I think she was not always properly informed of what is obtaining on the ground. It should be very meaningful if she could get a good technical person to orient her accordingly before any public consultation of her committee will be held.
We have good locally-developed and produced hybrid varieties, but support for its expansion is long in coming. Some DA people recalled that relevant researches were even questioned by the senator a couple of years ago.
But going back to the WFF. Dar postulated that one of the inefficiencies weighing down on local agriculture is related to the partial distribution of land in accordance to our land reform law, where smaller areas were given to beneficiaries who can not farm properly because of lack of personal capital and even technical knowhow to do it alone. The result is more effort to do farm clustering in order to improve the economies of scale of production.
Diversifying crop production to double income of farmers, and improving their capacity to adopt new technology needed to increase production together with profit are just two of those proffered solutions to some problems. Dr. Dar also talked of food sovereignty, which is our ability to produce our own food, so that we will not be at the mercy of any foreign food supplier.
One thing that Dar told in his speech appears to be very good but it may not sit well with organic advocates. He said that golden rice (a GMO) production is to be widely planted in the Philippines shortly. We will be the first country in the world to do so. Of course the golden rice, which has very high Vitamin A content, had already been tested in the Philippines.
The recurring theme in WFF from various speakers from at least 20 countries are the following: food security, climate change, use of resilient crops, sustainable transformation of farming systems, environmental protection, green economy, gender and development, green economy, marine ecosystem, global cooperation, public-private partnership, and others.
Investment plans for Agriculture Resilience were presented by 19 countries (3 from Asia, 8 from Africa, 6 from South America, 2 from Pacific Islands). It would be wise for our agriculture officials to look into those plans, they may provide us with something that we could adopt or modify to come up with our own Resiliency plan.
I don’t know how many participants from the Philippines were actually in actual or virtual attendance. I myself made sure that I come from the Philippines with my few reactions.**
