Large scale comm’l farming seen to address poverty

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MANILA – Investors in the agriculture sector believes that large-scale commercial farming of various industrial crops and technology adaptation can be a powerful poverty alleviation key for the country.

Industry players said in a Go Negosyo forum held at the Manila Polo Club that sugar, rice, and oil palm cultivation would improve agriculture share to the gross domestic product (GDP).

“We are businessmen, when we see market deficiencies; we look into it and do something. The view of most Filipinos about agriculture is that it’s business for the poor,” said businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan, as quoted in a Philippine Star report.

Pangilinan is the managing director and CEO of Hong-Kong-based First Pacific which has agricultural investments via Indofood.

First Pacific acquired a 34 percent share in one of the largest sugar millers in the country, Roxas Holdings Inc.

“The question of channeling credit to farm- ers, the essential thing is to improve the credit quality of farmers. We have to ensure that the business of the farmers is good in the general sense,” he said.

He added that the government may help invest in the farming industry as it will help in the country’s poverty reduction programs.

“We have to get into commercial farming. We have to let the private sector in but where do we get the land,” he said. “If we can get into the commercial sense, business will come in and prosperity will follow.”