Senator Villar urges promotion of food security

MARIVELES, Bataan – Sen. Cynthia Villar urged about 10,000 local government officials, barangay leaders, private organizations and educational sectors to effectively participate in the promotion of food security program with the exceptional industrialization pace of the historic peninsula.
She explained the pivotal need of sustaining environmental and highly-balanced economy as the operative systems of attaining self-sufficiency and its status as one of the top investment hubs in Central Luzon .
Senator Villar, chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food has stressed that she is espousing to established 1,865 farm schools throughout the country to equip the farmers the latest mechanized crop practices and to produce inbred seeds to lower the production cost of growing palay.
Villar elaborated the concept of this training program is preparing the farmers to make adjustments to the modern way of farming and help them compete against imported rice.
She revealed that she is waiting for the approval of Senate Bill No. 1998 which has been marked as urgent by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, intended to ease the low supply of rice, reduce prices and help local farmers .
Under the Bill, the government will earmark P 10 billion a year for the next six years to make them more competitive. The budget of P 5 billion will be allocated to Philippine Center for Post-Harvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMECH) for the acquisition of machineries for 1,100 rice producing towns every year for the next six years, P 3 billion will be given to the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) to teach the farmers how to produce inbred seeds that were discovered could increase farmers’ harvest production by 50 percent , P 1 billion will go to Land Bank and Development Bank of the Philippines to give farmers low loan credits, additional P 100 million will be given to (PhilMECH) for the training of trainers on mechanization, another P 100 million will be given to Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) and P 700 milllion will go to Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).