President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. is seeking to modernize the rice sector at a time when a pandemic and war showed "how fundamental" the agriculture sector is.

In his visit to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) headquarters in Los Baños, Laguna on Tuesday, Nov. 29, Marcos raised the need to adopt supportive policies to modernize the rice sector as part of a vibrant agri-food industry in the Philippines.

He urged stakeholders to support the government in elevating the current condition of the local rice industry and pushing for sustainable rice value chains.

"There are new technologies that address the problems that we are facing, and that those technologies are beginning to be disseminated down to the local farmers," Marcos said.

He stressed that global issues, including the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, reminded the world of "how fundamental" the agriculture sector is.

"The pandemic and the situation in Ukraine have been a glaring reminder of how fundamental the agricultural sector is and food supply is to not only in the Philippines but to the entire world," the chief executive said.

"We hope to strengthen those partnerships because we very much need — not only to be able to disseminate or to provide these new varieties, the new techniques — but we also have to have a more focused approach to how we deal with the agricultural sector to the rice lands in the Philippines," he pointed out.

Marcos said his visit to the IRRI gave him hope in terms of the available technologies the country has for the agriculture sector.

"Ang maganda sa naging resulta nitong bisita ay marami tayong nakita na meron sila bagong (What's good about our visit here is we saw many new) technologies that are completely appropriate to the Philippine setting so nabigyan kami ng pag-asa na (we were given hope that) it’s up to us now in the Philippine government to make sure those technologies, those products go down to the grassroots," the President said.

He further said that it gives him hope that "the research that we were doing is headed exactly in those directions that we feel are going to be necessary."

In his visit to the IRRI, Marcos was briefed about the various initiatives being done to improve crop resilience, which includes direct seeding of rice; laser land leveling (LLL) which is a laser-guided mechanized system to redistribute soil across a field for a leveled and uniform cultivation area, significantly improving water and input efficiency and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions of paddy farming; solar bubble dryer which is a low-cost seed drying technology that can be set up anywhere, eliminating losses from traditional sun drying such as spillage, animals, weather, and vehicles running over the grains; and hermetic storage system, wherein airtight seed storage containers in various sizes help reduce oxygen and moisture penetration, minimizing losses from insects and rot and helping preserve grain quality for longer.