The Philippines and the United States signed two agreements on ethanol use and control of African swine fever (ASF).
The agreements were signed by officials of the US Department of Agriculture through the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) with local counterparts as part of the former’s trade mission in the Philippines this week.
FAS administrator Daniel Whitley in a briefing on Tuesday said the agreements are generally anchored on sharing American information and experience to help the Philippines in dealing with ethanol and ASF.
Whitley said a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the United States Grains Council and the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) where the American agency will bring in technical expertise and knowledge about ethanol to the Philippines.
MMSU, located in Ilocos Norte, is host to the National Bioenergy Research and Innovation Center, a US Agency for International Development-supported hub for bioenergy research, training, extension and technopreneurship in the Philippines.
“We think the promise of ethanol could be really, really great. Obviously, (the Philippines) has a domestic ethanol sector and our efforts would be to only support ethanol consumption after the absorption of… domestic supplies. We think there is a lot of potential with ethanol to combat inflation,” Whitley said.
“There is a direct correlation between fuel prices and food prices, so if we could increase the use of ethanol and bring down gas prices… Agriculture is so energy intense it would also bring down food prices,” Whitley added.
The FAS administrator said the US can share information and findings of numerous studies and analysis on the impacts of ethanol on vehicle fleet as well as its performance in different climate conditions and weather patterns as well as its emissions savings and positive contributions to the environment.
He said the MOU is an opportunity for the Philippines to collaborate with the US to discover how ethanol benefitted American agriculture and rural economy.
“Ethanol has really become a vital part for rural communities not only as a secondary market for the byproduct in corns but also the development and creation of mini ethanol plants in rural America and we are benefitting as a country as it brought down some of our fuel costs with record fuel prices in the US and we were able to address climate change and greenhouse gas emissions,” the FAS official added.
At present, petroleum oil products sold in the country must be blended with 10 percent of ethanol which is mainly derived from sugar cane.
Several proposals to raise the current blend into a higher number were discussed in Congress but are yet to materialize due to fears that it will push pump prices of fuel.
Meanwhile, Whitley said another MOU was signed by pork industry stakeholders with the University of Minnesota to bring in best practices in terms of ASF control to the Philippines.
“We’ve got some of the most sophisticated surveillance programs to target and address ASF outbreak. We’ve been working with the Dominican Republic and we’ve seen the success of those efforts to keep it out of the mainland and we’ve been working with all 58 state veterinarians to make sure they are involved and they understand what’s being done,” Whitley said.
He added that apart from the Dominican Republic, the US is also working with countries such as Mexico, Haiti and Canada for various vaccine trials, among other studies and efforts to control ASF which they also want to share to the Philippines.
As of June 23, active cases of ASF in the country are in 36 barangays in the provinces of Benguet, Quezon, Marinduque, Leyte, North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Surigao del Norte and in the city of Zamboanga.
