President Rodrigo Roa Duterte witnessed on December 21, 2017, the launching of the next best food staple at the Sasa Wharf in Davao City.
The initiative, according to the President, is part of the government’s efforts to ensure every Filipino of available, accessible and healthy food at all times, as well as protect and empower farmers.
“The only way to help our farm workers is to bring them the market,” Duterte added.
The Rice-Corn Blend will provide new market segment and demand specifically for the health conscious. It is expected to ease up pressures on rice imports as it aims to help local corn farmers revitalize the country’s corn industry.
“The rice and white corn combo is a healthier choice for the rice-eating Filipinos as corn contains higher amylose content which makes it harder to gelatinize and slower to digest,” Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol said.
“Bigas-Mais is just one of our strategy to quash our dependence on imported rice every time a shortfall in supply surfaces,” he added.
The event highlights the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Department of Agriculture (DA), National Food Authority (NFA) and private sector organization of corn producers—the Philippine Maize Federation, Inc. (PhilMaize).
Under the agreement, DA will ensure the availability of quality corn seeds and provide the required interventions for production areas such as capacity building, farm mechanization equipment, and postharvest facilities.
NFA is tasked to distribute and market the rice-corn blend to their regular retail outlets, government institutions, non-government organizations, and other institutional buyers, and also to monitor the compliance of the product to existing quality standards.
PhilMaize will supply quality rice-corn blend through the conduct of the necessary processing, such as milling, packaging and storage, sourced from local producers.
“Corn is not a new staple food but it has been overlooked by the government for so long,” Piñol said.
“If we are able to infuse at least 300,000 to 500,000 metric tons of corn next year, it will be the second time in our history that we are able to reach sufficiency in staple grains,” he added.
Bigas-Mais has three vaiants: Regular (70% rice and 30% corn),Special (50% rice and 50% corn), and Premium (30% rice and 70% corn).
The agri chief said DA targets to make the rice-corn blend available to country’s leading supermarket starting by January of 2018. (Kristel Merle/DA-AFID)
