Occidental Mindoro open to biotechnology
LGUs, farmers and coops endorse BIONet

SAN JOSE, Occidental Mindoro – To boost agricultural production and make farming more profitable for the people, Occidental Mindoro Governor Josephine Ramirez-Sato is opening the doors to modern biotechnology and wants ‘experts’ to ‘sit down’ and talk about the potential benefits it offers the people to improve the local economy.

Sato admitted that the people of Occidental Mindoro have some misconceptions about GMOs and biotechnology and the danger it allegedly pose to human health and the environment but said they are more than willing to listen to the country’s scientists to “enlighten” the people and the leaders.

“We are ready to listen.  We are open to biotechnology.  The people are afraid of GMOs and biotechnology because we don’t know anything about it.  Convince us that biotechnology is safe to human health and environment and we will allow GMOs,” she said.

Sato led more than 80 officials from various national and local government agencies, farmers and farmer’s cooperatives, and the private sector in attending a two-day seminar-workshop on economic opportunities of biotechnology held at the Sikatuna Beach Hotel in this town last April 24-25.

After the seminar, recognizing the potential benefits of modern biotechnology and its application to agriculture, they signed a resolution endorsing the formation of the Biotechnology Information and Organization Network (BIONet).

BIONet is a formal partnership between government and private stakeholders advocating for biotechnology at the national and local levels.      

An initiative of the Department of Agriculture (DA), it aims to institutionalize and maximize agricultural biotechnology for livelihood, food, nutrition and marketing capability of communities.

While Occidental Mindoro, considered the food basket of Luzon, is already food self sufficient and is in fact feeding its neighboring provinces in the Calabarzon area, she said the challenge for them is to produce food to feed the country’s growing population.

“It is not a matter of being self sufficient.  As far as we are concerned, we are self sufficient.  It is a matter of feeding the entire country,” she said.

Occidental Mindoro’s annual contribution to the National Food Authority’s (NFA) palay stock is estimated at P1 billion.

Augusto S. Abeleda, Occidental Mindoro’s Provincial Agriculture Officer who also attended and led the formation of BIONet said the challenge for the provincial officials is to make farming profitable.  He sees modern biotechnology and its application to agriculture as a way of maximizing the potential gains of farmers from farming activities by increasing yield and reducing production costs.

“Farmers in Occidental Mindoro remain poor because even though we are the top palay-producer in this country, farmers’ income is very low because of the production cost.  Labor and inputs are expensive.  We must make farming profitable,” he said.

For his part, Joey Valera, Provincial Director of the DTI and concurrent director of Region IV-B which covers Occidental and Oriental Mindoro, Romblon, Marinduque and Palawan said biotechnology offers trade and industry in the region the much needed boost and is confident that value-adding to agricultural products would generate jobs as business opportunities start to attract investors to start their small business in the province.

Biotech experts led by Dr. Saturnina Halos, the head of the Biotechnology Advisory Team of the Agriculture Department and Director Alicia Ilaga of the DA’s Biotechnology Program discussed economic opportunities on biotechnology during the seminar-workshop which saw participants wanting to know more about biotechnology and its products.

Engineer Danilo Manayaga, president and chief executive officer of Servac Corporation and Secura Plant Genetics Corporation discussed the potentials of planting plants that are rich with valuable plant resources such as banaba for the supply of ingredients to companies engaged in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products.

Biotech crops currently in the pipeline are papaya resistant to the papaya ringspot virus and papaya with delayed ripening traits, multi-virus resistant tomato, bunchy-top resistant banana, multi-vitamin enriched rice variety, among others.

Officials from different national government agencies including the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA) also attended the seminar.  (Biolife News Service)