Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel, Jr. is set to unveil next week his strategies to enhance the production capacity of the farm sector and its contribution to the national economy, aiming to better the lives of farmers and fisherfolk.
“2024 is a new year, and it will be a very challenging year. As I told you last time, all eyes are trained on us, but more on me, probably because I’m the new agriculture secretary. The entire country expects that we could feed them and that we will try to bring commodity prices down,” Laurel said.
Laurel rallied the DA employees to focus on the challenge of producing more food for Filipinos even as the country faces a prolonged dry spell in the first part of the year.
“We can do this. But I need your help; I need your full cooperation for the DA to achieve its goals,” Tiu Laurel said.
Appointed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in November 2023, he emphasized the importance of timely farm and market statistics, the adoption of new technologies, and farm mechanization.
“Very soon, we will have that program—possibly in the next 10 days—that we will cascade to everyone,” he said.
Laurel reminded DA employees to work with urgency given the challenges faced by the sector, including this year’s El Nino episode, and the time left in President Marcos’ single six-year term.
“A lot of things need to be done. We need to do this with a sense of urgency because there are only four years left in the administration of President Marcos. And we also have to change the perception of Filipinos so that we can produce more food for our country,” Laurel said.
