The Philippines and the United States (US) will continue to work together amid the pandemic in building new markets for their respective farmers via climate-smart production systems, the Philippines' Department of Agriculture (DA) said.

Both nations, through their respective agriculture departments, have traded letters expressing their common intention to strengthen the cooperation of their agriculture sectors, particularly on food systems transformation.

“With your leadership, we hope to further strengthen collaborative efforts between the Philippines and United States on agricultural trade, technical cooperation, and other partnership opportunities,” DA Secretary William Dar said in his letter to his newly-appointed American counterpart, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack.

In response, Vilsack mentioned how USDA is transforming America’s food system by focusing more on resilient local and regional food production and seeking fairer markets for producers while ensuring access to healthy and nutritious food in all communities.

“Our goal is to build new markets and streams of income for US and Filipino farmers and producers by using climate-smart food and forestry practices. We are committed to making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural communities and creating equity across the department,” Vilsack said.

The USDA is supporting two ongoing projects in the Philippines under the Food for Progress program-- PhilCAFE and the B-Safe projects.

PhilCAFE is an investment in the coffee sector that leverages private and public capital to help put the country’s National Coffee Roadmap into action.

The B-Safe Project, on the other hand, aims to help improve the trade of safe, wholesome food and agricultural products through the provision of tools and information needed to help the Philippine government implement evidence-based risk analysis.

“Our agricultural trade relationship is robust. The US is the Philippines' largest single-country import source of agri-fisheries products in the world and the second-largest destination of our food and agri-fisheries exports. We look forward to further enhancing this agricultural trade relationship,” Dar said.

The top US farm products exported to the Philippines from 2015 to 2019, averaging $2.66 billion a year, included soybean meal; wheat; dairy products; prepared food; processed vegetables, poultry meat, pork, beef, and their respective products; snack foods; and feeds and fodders, among other farm products.

The Philippines exported to the US various agricultural products worth $924 million in 2019, including tropical oils ($353 million), processed fruit and vegetables ($165 million), fruit and vegetable juices ($112 million), tree nuts ($92 million), and raw beet and cane sugar ($36 million).