Article by:
Christine Cudis
MANILA – With barely three months left before Secretary William Dar leaves the Department of Agriculture (DA), he wants to be remembered for his legacy of providing direction for the sector’s future leaders.
Foremost among the programs was the “OneDA Reform Agenda” based on consolidation, modernization, industrialization and professionalization, and science-based key strategies to make the agriculture sector competitive.
"Ang legacy po natin ay may direksyon ang sektor ng agrikultura (Our legacy is the direction for the agriculture sector), ‘yung (the) thinking, it led to a new food security development framework. There was the global summit of the food systems approach so we made our own version of that, sinama na natin ito lahat sa (we rolled everything into the) OneDA Reform Agenda. That's a legacy. We have a direction for the future. It will be the solid foundations of the sector," he said on Tuesday during an online press briefing.
The reform agenda includes strategies such as farm mechanization and infrastructure investments; climate change adaptation and mitigation measures; global trade, export development and promotion; education and training: agribusiness management; youth and women engagement; and ease of doing business and transparent procurement.
Dar also batted for 100-percent budget utilization and the completion of big-ticket infrastructure projects such as the Cold Examination Facility for Agriculture, Agri-industrial Business Corridors, Fisheries Biotechnology Center, and the Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases.
He also called for the continuous support of the commercial urban and peri-urban agriculture projects, which form part of the “Plant, Plant, Plant” program to ensure sufficient food production during the pandemic.
In February, Dar was awarded conferred the Doctor of Philosophy in Development Administration, honoris causa, by the Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University in La Union.
The university said the DA chief is a champion of agricultural development and supporter of science-based researches and innovations. (PNA)
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