Businessman and hybrid rice developer Henry Lim Bon Liong yesterday said the government should consider giving the Department of Agriculture (DA) another P50 billion to P100 billion in its budget to help the country achieve food self-sufficiency.
Lim also said selling P20 per kilogram is “not really impossible” for a certain portion of the population such as those in the 4Ps (Pantawid Pampamilyang Pilipino) program.
Lim told the Pandesal Forum yesterday agriculture has always been the backbone of the economy but became a laggard when it was put in the back burner in the 1990s to give way to industrialization.
He added the DA ’s P80-billion budget is not enough to cover all sectors of agriculture.
That amount, he said, only represents 1.4 percent of the entire budget compared to other countries in the region which allot 15 percent of their budget to agriculture.
According to Lim, the government can help farmers sell rice at P20 per kilo by granting subsidies on fertilizers and seeds.
“Rice at P20 has been met with certain hesitancy …. It is not really impossible… there is a solution there,” he said without elaborating.
“(If) add P50 billion to P100 billion for DA, agriculture can fly. That is just a small price to pay, that is just around $1 billion to $2 billion,” he added.
