Latest in agricultureMindanao’s agriculture is more modern and more productive than Luzon’s, and life on the island is more peaceful, more affordable, and full of more opportunity than Metro Manila, making it the better place to live and work for any Filipino willing to go back, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel…
The Philippines’ chronic failure to solve its geographic fragmentation has produced one of the most absurd realities in Philippine agriculture: it costs more to ship bananas from Mindanao to Metro Manila than to export them to Japan and China, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol…
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. still has two years to act on the most urgent threat facing Philippine agriculture: the flood of imported food that is wiping out local farmers one sector at a time. This was the assessment of former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol, who stressed that the…
The Philippines can produce enough food to feed its entire population, but the real crisis is that tomatoes rot in Cavite while sardine makers in Zamboanga import tomato paste from China, and fish pile up unsold in Tawi-Tawi while the same island lacks vegetables and chicken. This is because no…
The Marcos administration’s economic team is systematically undercounting agriculture’s contribution to the Philippine economy by ignoring food processing and manufacturing, former Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol said Wednesday. Piñol claimed that this error that makes the Philippine…
The Marcos administration’s proposed 2027 national budget grows the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) allocation by 12.66% from the current year, with major provisions covering rice programs, irrigation, farm-to-market roads, and crop insurance for 2.3 million small farmers and fisherfolk, Budget…
The Marcos administration’s proposed 2027 national budget of ₱7.2 trillion was built on one governing idea: that the money Filipinos contribute to government must find its way back to them as real, tangible services, Budget Secretary Kim Robert De Leon said Saturday. De Leon made the statement in…
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has shifted the focus of its forest rehabilitation programs to headwaters and mountain peaks—the source of water that feeds downstream farming communities—rather than concentrating planting efforts in lowland areas that are easier to reach…
The incoming Super El Niño poses a bigger threat to Philippine agriculture than the recently eased Iran conflict, Senate President Win Gatchalian warned Saturday, noting that several provinces have already declared a state of calamity due to severe drought conditions. Gatchalian raised the alarm…
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz dealt a “double whammy” to Filipino farmers, driving up fertilizer prices on top of already elevated costs from the broader Iran conflict, Senate President Win Gatchalian said Saturday, warning that the agriculture sector has borne a disproportionate share of…
Rising nighttime temperatures — not daytime heat — are emerging as the more critical factor affecting rice productivity in the Philippines, a Filipino climate scientist said Saturday, citing research from the International Rice Research Institute that has gone largely undiscussed despite the…
A warmer planet does not simply mean hotter days—it means more energy circulating in the climate system, producing wider swings between drought and intense rainfall that can trigger flash flooding when dry, hardened soil suddenly meets heavy rain, a Filipino climate scientist warned Saturday.…
The National Irrigation Administration (NIA) has no power to stop the conversion of irrigated farmlands to commercial or industrial use, its administrator admitted Saturday, as both he and a former senator flagged the long-running absence of a National Land Use Plan as a critical gap undermining…
The City of Manila and the Provincial Government of Ilocos Sur opened the “One Ilocos Sur Bazaar in Manila” on Tuesday morning, June 9, at the Kartilya ng Katipunan, bringing together farmers, fisherfolk, artisans, and MSMEs from the heritage province for a three-day showcase running until June…
University of the Philippines (UP) National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) Dean Dr. Kristoffer Berse gave President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. a passing grade at the four-year mark of his presidency—but stopped short of calling his performance exceptional, saying there are still…
The day’s most important stories in the Philippines and the world, in one five-minute read. Delivered at 6 AM, Monday to Saturday.