Contrary to the projected development in the year 2020 that the Department of Agriculture claimed, President Rodrigo Duterte said that rice self-sufficiency in the country cannot happen due to rich people\u2019s acquisition of the cultivable land and turning it into cash
\ncrop.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, we cannot be self- sufficient, why? In rice? Because ourlands that are suitable for plowing has been taken by people who have money for the cash \u2013 cash crop, it is no longer food crop,\u201d Duterte said in his speech during his visit\u00a0in\u00a0Sultan Kudarat.<\/p>\n
With this, the president also called on the Department of Agriculture and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to speed up its\u00a0efforts in giving away agricultural fields with no owners to the landless farmers because according to him, there is no use of hanging onto a property which does not serve the Filipino people.<\/p>\n
Moreover, Duterte expressed gratitude towards farmers, stressing that they are the ones who \u201cregularly provide people with sustenance and ensure food security despite difficulties such as disasters, price fluctuations and financial shortages.\u201d<\/p>\n
To help improve lives of these farmers whom he said are a vital aspect in the survival of the country, Duterte vowed to continue \u201cproviding livelihood programs, insurance, production and postharvest\u00a0trainings and the most important of all, the credit access.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(DAILY NEWS ROUND UP FOR 04\/ 4 \/18)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Contrary to the projected development in the year 2020 that the Department of Agriculture claimed, President Rodrigo Duterte said that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":114184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","mauthors-ro-angelica-equio","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}