GOVERNMENT agencies vowed to help develop the rubber industry as the administration eyes local producers as sources of raw materials for its projects.
The Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Agriculture have acknowledged the value of rubber farmers in the government’s construction and agriculture initiatives.
These departments recently signed the Joint Statement of Commitment for the Philippine Rubber Industry Road map 2017-2022.
Along with several other agencies, they will address gaps and identify opportunities from rubber production to processing and manufacturing of products.
“[The rubber] industry is critical in helping achieve President [Rodrigo] Duterte’s vision of real inclusive growth,” Trade secretary Ramon M. Lopez said in a press release. “The rubber production sector involves over 55,000 small farmer-growers.”
Ninety percent of rubber farmers in the Philippines are small growers, mostly from Mindanao – specifically Zamboanga Peninsula, Soccsksargen, and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
“DTI is committed to expand market and processing opportunities for their products by bringing in more investors on rubber processing and rubber-based products, like tire companies, and linking them with the local rubber suppliers,” said Lopez.
Philippine rubber, he added, can be used for rubberized asphalt on road projects under the Build, Build, Build program, the government’s flagship construction initiative.
Meanwhile Agriculture secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said rubber has a crucial role in reformatting the country’s agriculture plan.
“The agricultural areas I’ve visited suffer from the same problems: soil erosion and landslides,” Piñol said. “These are indications of poor agricultural planning – where farmers are planting crops where we should be planting rubber trees.”
The road map outlines steps in the following aspects of rubber production: production and productivity improvement; processing and manufacturing; domestic and export marketing; research, development and extension; finance and investment promotion; and information, policy formulation and advocacy.
Other agencies helping work on the same road map are the departments of Science and Technology, Environment and Natural Resources, and Agrarian Reform, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, the Mindanao Development Authority, the Philippine Rubber Industries Association, the Philippine Rubber Farmers Association, and the University of Southern Mindanao, a DTI press release showed.
The Philippines is currently a minor rubber producer, yielding 1 percent of natural rubber in the world. Among the top producers are Indonesia and Thailand, which contribute 25 percent and 34 percent, respectively, of the global production.
But the Philippine rubber industry steadily grows. Production grew 8.9 percent – to 138.24 thousand metric tons in the last quarter of 2017 from 126.94 thousand metric tons in the same quarter of 2016./PN
