DA Seeks Soft Loans From Japan For Food Security

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is set to secure soft loans from Japan to increase food security programs under the two countries’ bilateral cooperation.

Representatives of the Embassy of Japan and the Japan Cooperation Agency (JICA), led by Economic Minister Nihei Daisuke and First Secretary and Agriculture Attache Tachikawa Jumpei, met with the DA to identify key areas of agriculture cooperation between the Philippines and Japan.

In the same meeting, DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban said the Philippines is interested in seeking financial assistance from Japan.

This can be achieved either through soft loans or the Japan Food Security Project for Underprivileged Farmers (formerly called the 2KR Program) to support its programs toward food security.

Similarly, the Japanese government is doing an assistant program for procuring chemical fertilizers and facilitating fertilizer management in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN FAO).

The bilateral cooperation between the Philippines and Japan is expected to make an impact in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) by helping provide farm-to-market roads, communal irrigation systems, and other initiatives.

In 2022, JICA started a five-year initiative to help the Philippines improve the vegetable value chain and increase farmers’ income as part of improving food security in the country.

The five-year project aims to conduct studies into the gaps in the country’s vegetable supply chain network. This will be done to come up with a vegetable value chain roadmap to identify major bottlenecks, provide solutions, and distinguish the roles of each stakeholder along the value chain.

The agriculture sector contributes a 10th to the overall economy of the Philippines.

JICA has been supporting the farming sector since the 1960s by building basic rural infrastructures, such as farm-to-market roads, post-harvest facilities, and irrigation systems, in agrarian reform communities.

Source: The Philippine Star