The growth of agricultural biotechnology has boosted the country’s prospects for increased food and feed exports to regional markets, according to government and private sector leaders.
Agriculture Undersecretary Segfredo Serrano said higher yields for the yellow corn biotech variety “favored the livestock industry and enabled farmers to export corn sillage to South Korea.”
The agriculture sector planted 795 hectares to biotech corn last year, marking a 6-percent growth and expanding its share in the 175 million hectares planted to biotech crop varieties across the globe last year.
Serrano confirmed reports by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research that the farm income of farmers engaged in biotech crop cultivation reached nearly P400 million over a nine-year period.
The report also said the country achieved self-sufficiency in yellow corn over the same period.
Advances in biotech crop cultivation is key to improving the country’s food security and reduce the country’s reliance on imported corn, he said.
Serrano said higher biotech yellow corn harvests helped the country stop the annual importation of one million metric tons of the commodity used by the livestock industry.
The DA announced last year corn export was a part of the government’s export program, with South Korea and Malaysia as initial target markets.
It said the National Food Authority Council recommended the exportation of 50,000 to 100,000 tons of yellow corn to avert a drop in local market prices due to surplus.
Private sector producers and exporters said South Korea was currently importing close to 80 percent of its corn requirements from Vietnam.
Local producers are eyeing at least a 20-percent share in the hefty South Korean market which has a requirement of some 3 million metric ton of corn feed for cow population of about five million heads.
