One recent development that augurs well for such an optimistic outlook is its having been accredited as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-free zone by the Organization International de Epizoo-ties.
Iloilo, Antique, and Guimaras can now go into livestock and poultry production and meat processing. Leyte can fo-cus on rai-sing beef cat-tle. Samar can concentrate on carabao production.
"With FMD-free certi-fication, we must aim to increase production to even-tually profit from exports," Agriculture Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo Jr. stressed.
Not long ago, Lorenzo, who was Presidential Advi-ser for Job Creation, enjoined businessmen in the Visayas to help fully develop its livestock industry to reduce the country’s dependence on imported cattle and meat products and, in the process, create jobs for farmers.
At the recent Visayas Business Conference, he ci-ted a report of a private com-pany which stated that trade in pork between countries will increase between 2000 and 2010, adding almost a million metric tons (MT) to the 2.25 million MT of pork traded internationally.
The youthful cabinet offi-cial said the government is doing its best to ensure that the FMD-free status would be maintained through strict quarantine measures which, among other things, include restricting the movement or transfer of meat products from Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao.
The country’s former sugar bowl has a shortage of cattle, which is partly being met by supplies from Mas-bate and Leyte while hogs come from Masbate and General Santos City and Davao in Mindanao.
"The unmet local demand is a clear sign of a business opportunity," Lorenzo said.
For livestock to flourish in Central Philippines, he called for intensified plan-ting of hybrid corn to ensure adequate feeds supply and reduce the country’s annual importation of this feedgrain of one million tons. The yield potential of hybrid corn is 3-4 t/ha compared with the traditional 2 t/ha yield.
Lorenzo further called for more investments in post-harvest facilities – such as dryers similar to those built in Mindanao – to improve the ratio of food grade to feed grade corn. Other invest-ment areas are sweet corn in Negros Occidental and yellow corn in Negros Oriental and Eastern Visa-yas.
He said another potential for the Visayas is palm oil, with Bohol emerging as a top producer of the commodity and a model for other provinces where palm oil can be planted and processed.
The country imported 73,000 tons in 2000, or a big increase from the 45,000 tons brought in 1996. Domestic demand was placed at 120,000 tons in 2000 and is expected to reach 173,000 tons by 2004, requiring a fully productive area of 43,000 hectares at an average of 4 t/ha.
Lorenzo also said that Eastern Visayas (Region 8), which now depends on other regions for its rice needs, should be producing its own requirements. The region could make use of the subsidized certified seeds program of the Department of Agriculture-National Food Authority (DA-NFA) or the hybrid rice program of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), which he chairs.
He, likewise, credited Visayas for being a major player in the mango indus-try. But the region could also get into aquaculture (princi-pally seaweeds/carragee-nan) following the example of Mindanao. Fisheries and coffee are good prospects.