A command center that will serve as a digital nerve center to enable smarter, data-driven management of the country’s food supply chain is scheduled to be launched in November, the Department of Agriculture (DA) announced yesterday.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said in a statement yesterday that the facility, whose trade data will primarily come from the Osiris system of the Bureau of Plant Industry, will initially zero in on the rice value chain.
The DA said information in the value chain of the country’s staple food is crucial, especially since wild swings in rice prices could unsettle economic assumptions, particularly those tied to inflation.
“When I accepted this Cabinet portfolio, my thinking was produce, produce, produce. Nearly two years into the job, I’ve realized that an equally important mantra is manage, manage, manage,” Tiu Laurel explained, noting the importance of the agency’s shift to utilize precise data.
DA said the digital nerve center will also consolidate critical data, including production, imports, stock levels, different types of the same products, movements, wholesale and retail prices, consumption rates, production and post-harvest infrastructures, utilization, irrigation coverage, spoilage, and global market trends, among others.
“The DA already has most of this data, but they are scattered across various agencies,” the Agri chief said. “We must bring them together and make market sense of them, plus gather additional data that we lack, so we can use our limited resources more efficiently and productively.”
The DA expressed that this move is also important, especially in light of the fact that rice imports in April and May this year totaled 970,000 metric tons (MT), which is way more than the country’s average monthly consumption of around 320,000 MT.
The agency said that this has caused the sharp decline in local palay prices, which in turn, prompted the government to suspend rice importation for two months starting September 1.
