Biotech role in integrated Asean market cited

Agricultural biotechnology can help the Philippines compete with lower-priced food commodities from other countries in the face of the integration of the Asean market next year.

This was pointed out by Emil Javier, former president of the University of the Philippines, who said the country faced serious competition in the rice and sugar sectors from Thailand and Vietnam.

Javier, who is also a former chancellor of UP Los Baños, said the “newfound vigor and competitiveness of the yellow corn feed sector” would be the country’s hope in the intense competition following the Asean market integration.

He said the Philippines had achieved near self-sufficiency in yellow corn feed due to the large-scale adoption of corn varieties developed through agricultural biotechnology. Data showed that Filipino corn farmers planted some 800,000 hectares to this variety in 2013. This represents 57 percent of the total area planted to corn nationwide.

Javier said farmers who used the biotech corn variety registered harvests of 5.4 to 5.8 tons per hectare, compared to the 3 tons per hectare harvested by users of traditional varieties. Farmers from Bukidnon and Isabela harvest as much as 8 tons per hectare using the biotech corn variety.

“We can compete in the world trade for feed corn,” Javier said.

He explained, however, that “the more realistic objective is to further increase supply of competitively priced quality feed corn to strengthen the competitiveness of our poultry and swine industries to bring down the cost of chicken and pork for domestic consumption and export.”

The biotechnology process raises the quality of corn by developing varieties with built-in resistance to insects and traditional pests. The resistance allows these varieties to produce more without the application of chemical pesticides.