Department of Agriculture (COA) Secretary Arthur Yap has ordered his regional executives nationwide to coordinate closely with local officials in implementing and monitoring President Arroyo's food security initiatives under the FIELDS program.

FIELDS, which enumerates the six areas where government support is being focused on under the President's food security and sufficiency agenda, stands for Fertilizers, Irrigation and other rural infrastructure like farm-to-market roads (FMRs), Extension services and education for farmers, Loans, Dryers and other postharvest facilities, and Seeds and other genetic materials.

This program is an initiative to attain a 100% self-sufficiency level in rice in the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP).

"I have instructed regional directors to stay in close touch with local officials and congressmen to apprise our stakeholders about our programs," Yap said.

Yap said that Malacañang has put FIELDS on the fast lane this year as several of its intervention programs have been incorporated into the Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (CLEEP) component of the President's economic stimulus package, which is meant to help Filipinos ride out the deepening global economic crisis.

He added that the DA expects this year's national palay production to surpass the record yield of 16.82 million metric tons in 2008, with the summer harvest alone likely to reach 7.3 million MT this year, or 2.8% higher than the previous year's volume of 7.1 million MT.

Such forecast is a result of the fast-track implementation of the restoration and rehabilitation of irrigation systems, and intensified cultivation of both hybrid and inbred rice certified seeds nationwide.

As for the seed intervention, certified seeds cultivation has already outpaced the previous season's performance with more than 557,373 hectares expansion (2008 dry season compared to the 2009 dry season).

"At the end of the day, Philippine agriculture registered a positive growth in 2008 and rice production grew in 2008 despite the global food crisis," Yap said. "We project farm growth expansion as well for the first semester of 2009. Beyond the submission of reports is the incontrovertible statistics of growth. We will let the figures speak for themselves."

Yap said the Arroyo government, through the DA family, has thus far accomplished the following under the FIELDS program:

For the Fertilizers component, the DA has to date distributed 30.8 million kilograms of organic fertilizers and other soil ameliorants such as Bio-N, Vital-N and Bio-con to help farmers reduce the cost of inputs and increase their productivity. (Marvyn Benaning)