Center Director Samuel Calonzo, together with other ATI 13 staff, joins the two-day 2021 National Food Security Summit (NFSS) via Cisco Webex meeting on May 18-19, 2021.
BUTUAN CITY, Agusan del Norte – The Agricultural Training Institute – Regional Training Center (ATI-RTC) XIII actively participated during the 2021 National Food Security Summit (NFSS) via Cisco Webex on May 18-19, 2021 with the theme, “Food for Today and Beyond: Transforming Philippine Agriculture.”
Joined by more than 3000 participants, the activity aimed to inform the stakeholders on the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) “New Normal” direction and to discuss immediate concerns affecting the agriculture sector.
In his welcome address, DA Secretary William Dar emphasized the need of the agricultural sector to seize the opportunity to level-up in its interventions, programs, and projects to address issues that arose especially on the African Swine Fever (ASF) in the livestock sector. Most importantly, NFSS aims to respond and meet the problems COVID-19 posed on the country’s food security. He also presented the OneDA reform agenda key strategies.
Moreover, Rodolfo V. Vicerra, Undersecretary for Policy and Planning, expounded the DA’s Plant. Plant. Plant. Program’s 10 commandments for Ph Agriculture Development, namely: enhance safety nets and agri insurance, environmental protection and regeneration, boost farm-to-market infrastructure, establish more post-harvest processing and storage, attract the youth and professionals in agriculture, enhance access to farm equipment and machinery, empower farmers and fishers as market players, expand access to agri-credit and financing, establish DA-LGU agri-development partnerships, and Increase budget/enhance the investment climate.
Some of the resource speakers and their topics were: Dr. Cielito Habito – Food Security in the Philippine Context, Dr. Ramon Clarete, the Chief of Party of Building Safe Agricultural Food Enterprises (B-SAFE) Project – Safe Trade Route to Stronger Agriculture, Dr. Rolando T. Dy, the Executive Director for Food and Agri-Business University of Asia and Pacific – Philippine Agriculture: A Sector Overview, and Bruce Tolentino – Finance and Credit in Agriculture.
Participants were then able to attend on separate group sessions for Programs on Rice, Livestock, HVCDP, and others.
Key officials who also gave their messages were Gov. Dakila Carlo Cua, Gov. Hermilando Mandanas, Sen. Francis Pangilinan, and Sen. Cynthia Villar.