The Philippines and the United States (US) have agreed to enhance cooperation in agriculture in efforts to boost food security and efficiency, as well as research and development in the sector, Malacañang said on Tuesday.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials led by Secretary Thomas Vilsack sealed the deal on setting up a ministerial team on agricultural cooperation during a meeting on Monday (Washington, D.C. time), according to the Presidential Communications Office.

In the meeting, Marcos also sought to bolster mutually beneficial agreements to strengthen agriculture research for development, as well as capacity-building initiatives specific to the advancement of biotechnology agenda in the country.

Marcos said he wanted to increase market access of Philippine agricultural products to the US.

The USDA, for its part, also looked forward to strengthened knowledge transfer between the US and the Philippines, as well as continued cooperation on agriculture innovation systems.

“(We’re) looking forward to an initiative where a number of your professors… will be coming to the United States, will be exposed to our own university system… so they in turn take it back to the Philippines,” a USDA official said.

Marcos pointed out that the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has revealed the “weaknesses” of Philippine agriculture, stressing the need to strengthen it.

“As we had started to plan our way out of the pandemic economy, even the financial experts, we would talk about the economy, we would talk about the more strictly financial aspects of the development economy, we still keep coming back to agriculture and we cannot do all of the things that we would like to do for our economy if our agriculture is not — there are agricultural system — is not strengthened,” he said.

He also expressed hope that the upcoming Food Security Dialogue on May 5 will further boost cooperation on capacity-building and technology support as the country works together in building effective and efficient supply chains, export and value-chain development of agricultural commodities.

The president said the goal is to strengthen agricultural research and development, particularly on biotechnology centers, geospatial databases, climate-proof facilities and information services.

“This is an extremely important part of the transformation of our society and of our economy for the post-pandemic world,“ Marcos said.

Joining the president in the meeting were House Speaker Martin Romualdez, Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual, Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla, Special Assistant to the President Secretary Antonio Lagdameo Jr., Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil, and Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez. (PNA)