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Philippine-based think-tank IBON Foundation on Monday warned that four deals signed between the Philippine and Chinese governments in January could lead to the lose of over a million hectares of farmland for Filipino farmers because of the financial vulnerability of poor farmers.

In a statement, IBON said the Philippines entered into four agricultural agreements with China which commits the Philippines to convert 1.24 million hectares for cultivation of hybrid rice, hybrid corn and hybrid sorghum.

However, the Philippine Department of Agrarian Reform announced last week, it is looking for 400,000 to 500,000 hectares of land for agribusiness development under an agreement signed with China in January this year. However, the deals said the area could expand to 8.8 million hectares of "idle alienable and disposable lands and forest lands."

But IBON said farmlands distributed to farmers under the agrarian reform program could revert back to moneyed landlords if the deals were implemented. The foundation cites past experience where agreements between farmers and agri-business corporation for production and marketing tie-ups lead to farmers losing control of their land and ownership.

"The Philippine-China farm deals may also threaten the country's food security as more and more lands are shifted from food staples such as rice, to production of crops for biofuels. Since the mid-1990s, the country is already completely a net food importer from being a net food exporter in earlier years," IBON said in a statement.

source: All Headlines News ahn.com

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