AUCKLAND, New Zealand (via PLDT) – The Philippines and the Sanitarium Health Food Company (SHFC), a leading New Zealand food manufacturer, have forged a partnership agreement intended to bolster the two-way trade of food items between the Philippines and New Zealand
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DAVAO CITY?Key agribusiness players in Mindanao aim for stronger government-private sector partnership in addressing food and agri-industry concerns across the island-region when the 6th Mindanao Food Congress opens here on 18-19 July 2007 at the Waterfront Insular Hotel.
The Mindanao Business Council, along with its cooperators from the government and private sector, formalized here yesterday the conduct of the 6th Mindanao Food Congress, an annual gathering of key players in Mindanao food and agriculture industry to discuss industry issues and policy initiatives.
Landlessness experienced by millions of farmers in Asia is worsened by liberalization dictated by the WTO and the monopoly of agrochemical TNCs over rice production.
BY ABNER BOLOS
Gitnang Luzon News Service
Posted by Bulatlat
MU?OZ, NUEVA ECIJA ? Feliciano Gazpar, 50, a farmer in Barangay Bibiclat, Aliaga, Nueva Ecija, owns a one-hectare rice land but because he has no money to buy enough commercial farm inputs, he cultivates only about a quarter of his plot this year.
?Gusto ko mang tamnan ng palay ang lupa namin wala akong magagawa, wala naman akong mailalagay na pataba at gamot. Malulubog lang lalo kami sa utang.? (I cannot plant rice to all of my land even if I wanted to. I can?t afford to buy fertilizers and pesticides. We will only be more indebted), Gazpar said.
Manila, 16 April 2007–Greenpeace activists dressed to symbolize the
bul-ul, a traditional Ifugao rice guardian, carried out a sit-in protest
at the Department of Agriculture?s (DA) doorsteps in Quezon City today.
The peaceful action was meant to tell the DA to act on its mandate to
protect the country’s food supply, in this case against looming GMO rice
(genetically-modified rice) threat posed by the agency’s pending
decision on GMO rice Bayer LL62.
As part of the protest, the activists also displayed a banner with the
message “Keep our rice GMO-free!” and delivered a bul-ul carving to DA
Secretary Arthur Yap’s office to remind him daily of the DA’s important
role in watching over the country?s precious rice supply. The bul-ul,
Greenpeace says, also symbolizes how this grain is inextricably linked
to our culture and way of life, and should serve to remind us how GMO
rice must never become a reality in the Philippines.
Farmers’ Conference: Making our own choices towards sustainable farming
Fersal Place, Malakas St.,
Brgy. Central District, Diliman, Quezon City
April 17, 2007, Tuesday, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM
The rice program of the Department of Agriculture is pinning all its
hopes on the hybrid rice technology to attain rice sufficiency in the
Philippines. The government has allotted a large slice of its budget
to this technology that was touted to be the breakthrough to improve
rice productivity. However, the country continues to rely on rice
importation to meet the domestic needs and the government has
constantly blamed the typhoons that hit the country to the sorry state
of the rice farming sector.