The government is mulling the plan to start raising organic chicken on a commercial scale to take advantage of the markets like South Korea willing to buy our export products.
This was announced by Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Emmanuel Piñol during a meeting with the Korean Ambassador to the Philippines Kim Jae-shin.
Dept. of Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol
Piñol said the government of Korea is willing to buy commercial organic chicken from us as well as other Philippine agricultural commodities.
“We can now sell our chicken products to them since the facilities of the San Miguel Corporation have already been approved and the Province of Maguindanao has started the ‘Halal’ chicken production,” Piñol said.
“The chicken can be raised, using commercial rearing facilities, but the feeds are totally organic. The all-natural feeds will be formulated by an Islamic engineer, so the products comply with Halal standards,” he added.
South Korean government also wants to buy more bananas and pineapples from the country, which can be sourced primarily from Mindanao.
“Investments in Philippine agriculture is very important as it enables us to be competitive with other ASEAN countries. We cannot compete with Vietnam and Thailand in terms of production if the government does not give adequate support,” the Agri Chief further said.
Piñol then told the Korean ambassador that with the help of technical personnel, he is positive that the country will achieve self-sufficiency in rice in three years.
A few days ago, he also expressed his desire to seek other export markets for banana and other commodities such as Russia.
“I already told the small banana exporters that DA will take the lead role in opening up new markets for them. We will help them. In fact, the first marketing blitz will be in Vladivostok, Russia,” Piñol said in an earlier interview with reporters.
“There’s no target yet but we will bring banana exporters to them, not only bananas but also pineapples. The Vladivostok fair will be on September 2 to 3. MBFEA is willing to join. That is my commitment to them,” he added.
This, according to him, will also hold true for all other agricultural products of the Philippines which would be identified with export potentials.
“Abaca, for example, we will really support the abaca industry and other products like coco water and I think it will find a good market for that in Europe,” he further said.
Regarding shipping issues, such as long travel period resulting to rotten commodities, Piñol only said “we will always find a way.”
