Senate panel approves proposed 2025 Dept. of Agriculture budget

MANILA, Philippines — The proposed 2025 budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and attached agencies and corporations was approved by the Senate subcommittee on finance on Monday.

Senator Cynthia Villar, who presided over the budget hearing, said that the proposed budget will now be submitted to the Senate plenary. The committee approved a total of P178.273 billion for the department.

The hearing that lasted for four minutes breezed through with no questions raised by the senator herself, other senators, and officials from DA.

Further, the senator bared the budget requests and instructions for other attached agencies and corporations.

“We will just ask the mother committee to provide Rubber Research Institute 50 million and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources 150 million,” Villar said in the hearing.

She added that the support for food safety, the Philippine Carabao Center, the National Dairy Committee, and “sure money” for the Bureau of Animal Industry will be coming from the livestock bill.

In August, the Senate approved on the third and final reading the Senate Bill No. 2558 or the Act Strengthening Livestock, Poultry, and Dairy Industry, which was authored by Villar, Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Lito Lapid, and Sonny Angara.

“The National Fisheries Research and Development Study, this is rejected except the salt fund which we will derive from the tariff on imported salt. We have the salt bill and you demand the tariff from the imported salt and use this for your development of the salt industry,” Villar added.

Senator Nancy Binay previously said during the DA budget hearing that the department should have a “specific line item” for African Swine Fever (ASF) expenses.