Nueva Ecija- Presided by Department of Agriculture (DA) Undersecretary for Rice Industry Development Dr. Leocadio S. Sebastian, the Rice Industry Stakeholders Engagement (RISE) Meeting was conducted on July 27-28, 2023.
NIA OIC-Deputy Administrator for Engineering and Operations Sector Engr. Josephine B. Salazar led the Department, Regional, Project Managers, and selected NIA key personnel in attending the first-day meeting at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), Science City of Muñoz.
The discussion concentrated on the preparation and strategies to mitigate the forecasted El Niño through convergence initiatives, formulate action plan for convergence in the Irrigators Associations (IAs), Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organizations (ARBOs), Small Water Irrigation System Associations (SWISAs), and Farmers Cooperative and Associations (FCAs), discuss guidelines for linking clusters to markets, and Public-Private Partnership, among others.
Undersecretary Sebastian emphasized that the targeted 1M hectares that will provide 8 million tons per hectare are located in the CISs and NISs of NIA, and if achieved, the 97.5% rice self-sufficiency goal of President Bongbong Marcos will be realized. However, there must be a strong working convergence between the Department of Agriculture (DA) agencies and other government entities.
