DA leads opening of Agrilink 2019 today

The Department of Agriculture (DA) and its allied agencies will lead the opening of Agrilink Foodlink and Aqualink 2019, the international trade exhibit in agriculture, food and aquaculture, at the World Trade Center, Pasay City, at 9 a.m. today, October 3.

Secretary William Dar has directed the DA and its bureaus and regional offices to address issues on sustainability, food security, global competitiveness and agricultural resiliency in the context of the event’s theme, “Climate Change-Resilient Agriculture: A Must for Eastern Visayas.”

Secretary Dar will be joined by DA’s attached agencies led by Alfredo Aton, director of the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI); Bernadette San Juan, director of the Agribusiness and Marketing Assistance Service (DA-AMAS); Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech); Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Product Standards (BFAPS), Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), and Korea Agricultural Machinery Industry Cooperative (KAMICO).

The DA sees Agrilink as an ideal platform to emphasize its core programs and projects, and promote the importance of an integrated focus on the chain of agribusiness activities, which in turn improves the efficiency of value adding and supply chain.

At 10:30 a.m. today, BFAPS will have a seminar on the standards, regulations, and best practices on organic agriculture. ATI will be holding a technical workshop on mushroom production and processing, including substrate production.

Sunjin Philippines, manufacturer and distributor of animal and fowl feeds and feed ingredients, will also share best practices on livestock farming.

At 1 p.m., there will be seminars on biosecurity measures that can be used to control pathogens in hog farms and on South African fruits and their export market in the Philippines.

At 3:30 p.m., the following seminars will be conducted: technical workshop on farm mechanization and, how to efficiently use nitrogen in farms to better mitigate climate change.

This event runs until Oct. 5.