With Brunei’s increasing demand for rice, the Philippines is now exploring intensified production and export of rice variants to Brunei, the Department of Agriculture (DA) bared.
(Courtesy of Department of Agriculture)
Agriculture Undersecretary Domingo F. Panganiban and Brunei Darussalam Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Megawati Manan have discussed possible agricultural trade opportunities when they held a meeting last Wednesday, July 26.
To help Brunei with its increasing demand for rice, the Philippines will be exploring heightened production and export opportunities for local Jasmine and sticky rice variants between 2024 and 2025, the DA said in a statement.
As such, the agriculture department said the two countries talked about scholarship opportunities and collaborative hybrid rice research at the Universiti Teknologi Brunei – Center for Research on AgriFood Science and Technology (CrAFT), which is the only research center for agriculture, food science, and nutrition in Brunei.
Manan, meanwhile, proposed exporting Halal beef, lamb, and other meat products to the Philippines, as well as opening Brunei to Filipino enterprises as a Halal product production base.
Through the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), Panganiban proposed to the ambassador the export and promotion of Philippine coconut peat, coconut oil, sweet corn, cacao, pineapples, mangos, avocados, durians, fishery products, and poultry products to Brunei markets.
The DA said that the Philippines and Brunei also looked at the prospect of extending the 2011-signed Memorandum of Understanding on Food Security and Cultural Cooperation, which had come to an end in 2016.
The aforementioned paper demonstrated the enthusiastic cooperation between Brunei and the Philippines in achieving the food basket ambitions of the BIMP-EAGA as well as the growth of the agriculture, fishery, food processing, and Halal businesses in both nations.