The Department of Agriculture is targeting to increase cassava production from 1.941 million metric tons this year to 10.477 million MT by 2014 to help feed millers during times of tight corn supply and possibly avoid emergency importations of corn and feed wheat, a DA press release said.

DA Assistant Secretary Dennis Araullo, said in the press release that the five-year program will double the area planted to cassava to more than 500,000 hectares to reach 100 percent self-sufficiency for the feed ingredient and meeting the full requirements of the cassava industry.

Cassava, which can substitute for as much as 20 percent of corn in feeds, is also used for bio-ethanol production and for human consumption, the DA said.

The hog and poultry sectors account for 79 percent of total domestic cassava consumption, it added.  

Araullo, national coordinator of the Ginintuang Masaganang Ani Corn Program, said the government needs to spend P26 million to P70 million per year until 2014 to reach full sufficiency and increase areas planted to 500,000 hectares from the 230,000-hectare target in 2009.  

The plan involves the establishment of post-harvest equipment to increase the quality of produce in major cassava-producing regions like Northern Mindanao, Bicol, Central Visayas, and Caraga.

As part of the plan, Araullo said the DA has propagated high-yielding cassava varieties like NSIC Cv22 (KU-50), Lakan I and Golden Yellow in 53 hectares last crop year. 

In Western Visayas, the DA has six Research Outreach Station on cassava alone.

The pilot station is in Sigma, Capiz, while other facilities are in Astorga and Dumaraw also in Capiz; Patnugon in Antique, and two in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental.

Western Visayas Regional Corn Coordinator, Ricardo Saltin, meanwhile, urged farmers to take advantage of the DA’s program on cassava as alternative feeds for livestock aside from corn, the press release said.

Last year, the DA also signed a P3-million deal with the Visayas State University-based PhilRootscrops to produce 5.6 million cassava plantlets annually, the press release also said.*

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