{"id":249981,"date":"2020-03-26T03:29:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T07:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=249981"},"modified":"2020-03-26T03:29:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T07:29:56","slug":"da-plans-p32-b-food-security-program-to-cushion-covid-19-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/03\/26\/da-plans-p32-b-food-security-program-to-cushion-covid-19-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"DA plans P32-B food security program to cushion Covid-19 impact"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Agriculture Secretary William Dar at the Agriculture Training Institute (ATI) in Quezon City on Monday (Feb. 24, 2020). (PNA photo by Oliver Marquez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 To ensure production of adequate, accessible and affordable food, the Department of Agriculture (DA) is requesting for a PHP32-billion supplemental budget to implement a food security program, dubbed as “Ahon Lahat, Pagkaing Sapat (ALPAS) Kontra sa COVID-19.”<\/p>\n

“This initiative, on top of the Department\u2019s existing programs, is aimed at averting food shortage, supply disruptions, and unstable prices due to the adverse impact of Covid-19 on farm and fishery production, and transport of basic commodities and processed food products to urban areas, particularly Metro Manila,” DA Secretary William Dar.<\/p>\n

Dar said the ALPAS Covid-19 program will enable the country to attain a food-secure Philippines during the national emergency period.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Covid-19 pandemic, we expect a tightening of global food supply. We are aware that when there is not enough food, disorder is probable,” he said.<\/p>\n

While improving food adequacy level, Dar emphasized the need to maintain food security amid the enhanced community quarantine being imposed in entire Luzon and some provinces to combat Covid-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf no action is done, the threat of hunger is as real as the threat of the virus,\u201d he said. “Therefore, we will expand farm areas, improve production efficiencies, and enhance projects and activities to ensure affordability and availability of food supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PHP32-B supplemental budget includes:<\/p>\n

\u2022 PHP8.5B – rice resiliency project;
\n\u2022 PHP7B – palay procurement fund of the National Food Authority;
\n\u2022 PHP3B – expanded SURE Aid and recovery project;
\n\u2022 PHP3B – expanded agriculture insurance project;
\n\u2022 PHP3B – social amelioration for farmers and farm workers;
\n\u2022 PHP1B – upscaling of KADIWA ni Ani at Kita;
\n\u2022 PHP1B – integrated livestock and corn resiliency project;
\n\u2022 PHP1B – expanded small ruminants and poultry project;
\n\u2022 PHP1B – coconut-based diversification project;
\n\u2022 PHP1B – fisheries resiliency project;
\n\u2022 PHP1B – revitalized gulayan project;
\n\u2022 PHP500M – urban agriculture project;
\n\u2022 PHP500M – acquisition of protective personal equipment;
\n\u2022 PHP300M – corn for food project; and
\n\u2022 PHP200M – information, education and communications project.\u00a0(PR)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 To ensure production of adequate, accessible and affordable food, the Department of Agriculture (DA) is requesting for a PHP32-billion …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":248273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249981","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249982,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249981\/revisions\/249982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}