RP offers land to local, foreign agribusiness investors

MANILA, Philippines - Over a million hectares of land will be made available to foreign and local investors in a bid to boost farm productivity, the Philippines’ Department of Agriculture (DA) said. An estimated 1.5 million hectares of agribusiness land – including those located in community-based forestry management areas – will be allotted for businesses planning to put up postharvest and processing facilities for palay, corn, and high-value commercial crops. “Most of the areas are suitable for farm production," Agriculture secretary Arthur Yap said in a statement. The DA announcement coincided with the visit of a 23-member delegation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia eyeing investments in palay, corn, bananas, mangoes, poultry and livestock, and fisheries. The government is offering the same opportunity to investors planning to build physical infrastructure like irrigation projects and expand their respective production areas. These investors could also develop mariculture parks, fish processing plants, postharvest facilities, feedmills; intensification of production of brackish water fishponds; fabrication of sea cages and other equipment; and aqua tourism. “The establishment of mariculture parks also offer investors opportunities to produce high-value commercial fish species such as grouper, red snapper, tilapia and king crab, as well as the construction of hatcheries for high-value species such as the grouper, seabass, abalone," the statement said. - RAMR, GMANews.TV