Agriculture investment forum seeks P1 billion private funds

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MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is seeking to secure at least P1 billion of investments from the private sector in its upcoming national investment forum, where it will showcase some of its key commodity priorities.

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said they plan to entice private sector investments into the sectors of cacao, mango, seaweed and coffee through the DA’s first-ever national investment forum.

The forum is centered on the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s hand-in-hand initiative wherein countries present investment proposals that might be attractive to global investors.

“We want to grow these four industries as soon as possible so they need investments both coming from local and foreign,” Tiu Laurel said on the sidelines of the launching of the national investment forum yesterday at the Asian Development Bank.

“We see the huge potential of these commodities in the international and domestic markets. We want to grab the opportunity to export more. So, we need private sector investments,” he added.

Dulce Carandang, FAO assistant representative to the Philippines, said the hand-in-hand initiative seeks to accelerate transformation of nation’s agriculture and food systems through targeted investments.

These investments, Carandang pointed out, help improve farmers’ welfare, make food production more resilient to climate crisis, boost economic development and fight hunger and poverty.

Tiu Laurel said the national investment forum aims to promote agriculture as a “highly” bankable sector despite it being one of the most vulnerable to climate threats.

“We want to bridge the global capital and local stakeholders,” he said.

“Through this forum, we redefine Philippine agriculture from being a legacy of the past to a sustainable engine for growth,” he added.

The DA noted that the hand-in-hand initiative links data-driven agricultural priorities with financing and technical expertise.

Andrew Jeffries, ADB country director for the Philippines, said some of the country’s decades-old policies have limited income and development in the country’s farm sector.

For ADB, some of the priority investment areas in agriculture are climate change and disaster, modernizing agricultural value chains and improving nutrition, Jeffries said.