Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas has urged state-owned firms to take the lead in advancing the planned massive "corporate farming" of rice and other crops in order to quickly build up food production countrywide.

Gullas, in a press release, said all government-owned or-controlled corporations should develop in-house farms and internally produce food, enough at least to match or offset the consumption of their employees.

"Let us compel every GOCC to set achievable in-house food production targets. Then let us assign a panel to monitor performance in terms of actual yield," the press release quoted him as saying.

"Every GOCC should produce an inventory of all their idle but fertile land, and then with the help of the Department of Agriculture, offer plans to cultivate palay or other food crops on suitable tracts," Gullas also said.

Gullas addressed his challenge to GOCCs that now belong to the country's top 1,000 corporations in terms of gross annual revenues.

They are the National Power Corp., Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., Land Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines, Home Development Mutual Fund, Philippine National Oil Co., Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp., Light Rail Transit Authority and the Philippine Ports Authority.

The other GOCCs in the top 1,000 firms are the Philippine Postal Corp., Manila International Airport Authority, National Housing Authority, National Electrification Administration, Bases Conversion and Development Authority, Local Water Utilities Administration, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and the National Development Co.

"Taxpayers are heavily subsidizing a number of these GOCCs. We might as well make full productive use of their resources, including untapped but potentially arable land," Gullas said.

Taxpayers spent a total of P27.3 billion to support a number of unprofitable and financially distressed GOCCs in 2007. This year, these GOCCs are getting an extra subsidy amounting to P11 billion.

Gullas stressed that increasing the productivity of existing rice farms, and enlarging the land devoted to growing the grain "are the most practical ways for us to cope with the menacing rice scarcity."

House Speaker Prospero Nograles was the first to propose "corporate farming," or the extensive cultivation of palay by agribusiness firms, to enable the country to immediately raise rice output toward self-reliance.*

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