The Department of Agriculture said in a report yesterday it has identified an initial 272,000 hectares of arable lands for planting to palay, corn and other crops with the help of Chinese companies who are investing the capital needed to develop these areas into agribusiness hubs.

The land include 200,000 hectares for rice and corn production; 70,000 hectares for cassava and sugarcane planting; and 2,000 hectares for sweet corn.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said the DA is encouraging foreign investments in agriculture because the Philippines has close to four million hectares of land that remain idle and undeveloped.

The government alone cannot fund the development of these vast hectarage so we have to tap foreign capital, he said in the report.

The Philippines will sign shortly memorandums of agreement with the Beidahung Group, China's largest agricultural investor, which plans to develop 200,000 hectares of land in the North Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle for rice and corn production.

Beidahung, which has total assets of 50 billion yuan, is also interested in setting up a modern farm machinery production facility and a bio-ethanol plant in NLAQ.

Other Chinese investors are also expected to formalize their intent in developing 70,000 hectares of land that would be planted to grains crops, cassava and sugarcane, which will be used for producing ethanol in China.

Lands for cassava and sugar will take up some 40,000 hectares, while 30,000 hectares will be set aside for grains crops. The Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences is also expected to expand its production of sweet corn in Pampanga to commercial quantities covering a 2,000 hectare area in Central Luzon, the DA report added.*

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