By Robina Asido

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expects a food crisis to occur and ordered the Department of Agriculture to ''increase our production of rice and corn, at least''.

He announced this on Monday during the first meeting of the executive committee of the Department of Agriculture which Marcos is heading.

"We have to attend to the impending food crisis that it seems will be visiting us in the next two quarters. We should really pay close attention to what we can do. I think the conclusions we have come to hear are that we have to increase production and we talked a little about how we can do it," he said.

"We can increase our production of rice and corn, at least. And hopefully, I don't think we have enough time to include the problem in livestock, pork and chicken. We have to think hard about making sure that people have...sufficient food and number one at a price that they can afford because again it is useless to have food if you cannot afford it anyway," he added.

On Tuesday, the government will announce inflation figures for June. The central bank said it expects the figure to be between 5.7 to 6.5 percent which is higher than May's 5.4 percent.

Marcos emphasized the need for the government to come up with a multiyear plan to build a value chain.

"For me that is the important thing because if that was created these are starters, the Masagana 150 and Masagana 200 (programs)... these are good plans that we have to put in place," he added.

"In the longer term we really have to reconstruct our value chain starting from our scientists and our researchers all the way to the Kadiwa store. We have to remake that model. We have a good model that was from a previous administration but it is a very different world out there. The technology is very different and although the concept will be very similar we have to come out with 2022 to 2028 to 2030," said Marcos.

"Do not be hesitant to make it multiyear because I really don't believe you can do this if you say one year or two years. Even six years might not be enough.... So those are two main elements that I am always concerned with," he added.

Marcos also told agriculture officials to inform him if there is a need to issue an executive order and budget for the reconstruction of the value chain.

"The immediate one is rice, corn, food supply for the rest of the year. (that is)number one. So if there are some EO again and some legislation you will need, even budget, supplementary budget from the House. Let's see if we can get any," he said. DMS