CHILE and the Philippines tied-up and convened the first joint technical working group (JTWG) meeting on agriculture in order to share the strengths of the two nations in agriculture and related fields.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) and Chile's Ministry of Agriculture led their respective organizations at the JTWG's inaugural online conference on agriculture on July 6, to tackle the ongoing efforts to reinforce agricultural, scientific and technical cooperation between Manila and Santiago.
The two countries underscored the importance of the JTWG meeting as a key platform in exchanging best practices between Philippines and Chile, and leveraging the two countries' complementarities and strengths in agriculture and related fields.
In addition to discussing current areas of cooperation, the workshop also provided a platform for future Philippine-Chilean cooperation in agroecology, organic farming, value chain management, and "best practices" in clustering and consolidating.
The JTWG discussed knowledge exchange on agriculture and fisheries extension, delivery systems, approaches, and modalities and cooperation in digital agriculture.
It also tackled knowledge exchange in virtual inspection of processing plants; the Chilean National Strategy of Sovereignty for Food Security; and, highly pathogenic Avian Influenza regionalization "to resume Chilean poultry exports."
Celeste Vinzon-Balatbat, the Philippine ambassador to Chile, emphasized the significance of each participating government entity convening additional sessions with more focused agendas, seeking to monitor the development of each agreed-upon area of agricultural collaboration and set timelines.
According to the Embassy, the Philippine-Chilean Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Cooperation in Agriculture, which Chile and the Philippines signed on November 17, 2021 and January 4, 2022, respectively, was the first landmark conference to be held "under the ambit" of that agreement.
