Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap has called for investments in remote sensing technologies to shield the farm and fisheries sector from the devastating effects of climate change and meet food security targets.

Yap stressed the Philippines needs to build up its risk assessment and disaster management capability utilizing available technologies such as Remote Sensing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and climate check.

With these technologies at hand, the Department of Agriculture (DA) can beef up its risk-assessment capabilities and allow it to see the real state of agricultural lands for better planning and implementation of farm productivity projects.

DA is trying to focus on helping farmers gear up for or adapt to climate change by providing them with such inputs as seeds that resist dry spells and floods.

Government must also invest in equipment and infrastructure that can help farmers and fisherfolk adapt to abnormal weather patterns. These include irrigation facilities that impound water (big reservoir types and small water impounding projects), all-weather roads and postharvest facilities, storage areas and warehouses.

"New technologies such as drought-resistant, submergence-tolerant crop varieties should be developed, and extension services, weather-based insurance and loans should be provided to farmers for their production and land improvement needs," he said.

Yap also called for strengthening and modernizing the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) to improve its ability to track and conduct quick and effective surveys critical to the design and implementation of programs at the local and national levels.

He also batted for a fuller development of the biofuel feedstock industry here and abroad, saying that next year alone, the country would need six to seven refineries to meet its biodiesel requirements as mandated under the Biofuels Law, and another seven to eight refineries by 2015.

By 2014, the country would need 314,286 metric tons of coconut or another 660,000MT of jatropha to produce biodiesel, he said.

For 2011, about 17 to 20 distilleries are needed to process crops such as sugarcane (6.85 million MT), sweet sorghum (9.64 million MT) and cassava (2.98 million MT) into bioethanol to meet the local demand of 482 million liters. By 2014, the demand of 537 million liters of bioethanol is expected to be generated with the implementation of the 10 percent mandate, he added.