DEPARTMENT OF Agriculture – Cordillera (DA-CAR) Regional Director Cameron Odsey is hoping to get a P75.5 billion allocation worth of budget for the next ten years to improve the region’s farming economy under the incoming administration.
Odyssey said that the region’s agricultural productivity would benefit from an annual P7 billion budget under the 2021 – 2030 National Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization and Industrialization Plan. Currently, the region only receives some P1 to P2 billion annually.
Under the plan would be infrastructure support, food sufficiency and food security programs.
Even after the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR)’s gross regional domestic product (GRDP) saw a bounce back with a 7.5 percent growth rate in 2021, the agricultural sector of the region saw a negative 1.7 percent growth rate.
Some 177,839 hectares of the region is agricultural farmland, which supplies highland vegetables daily to both locals in the region and markets in the lowlands.
The DA-CAR is also projecting a potential global food value inflation due to supply chain disruption and unstable food prices due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
