Agriculture secretary Arthur C. Yap said he was confident that the local corn sector would grow beyond the government growth target of 10 percent this year.

“If it weren’t for the typhoons that had hit us last year, the corn sector would’ve grown by as much as 14 percent,” Yap said during a meeting with corn industry stakeholders last week

“This is a point of great opportunity as the [corn sector] is growing at unprecedented pace and we want to sustain it. I have my own numbers,” He, however, refused to disclosed his own targets.

For 2008, the corn sector is targeted to grow by 9.35 percent to 7.37 million metric tons, pushing the country’s corn self-sufficiency level to 94 percent.

The DA and industry stakeholders are formulating corn specification standards to fulfill the government’s goal of making the Philippines self-sufficient in corn in 2009.

“The country needs another 1.5 million MT of corn production to be self-sufficient so we just need to get closer to these figures,” Yap said.

Documents from the Department of Agriculture had shown that combined yellow corn and white corn production is estimated to grow by 647,701 MT this year, while areas planted to corn is targeted to expand by 66,502 hectares.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary Dennis Araullo said the department was targeting new areas for corn in Mindanao, particularly in Maguindanao, North Cotabato, Bukidnon and Sultan Kudarat.

The DA also expects to generate more than 60,000 jobs with this expansion.

For this year, the DA plans to release funds sufficient to cover 75,000 ha planted to genetically improved Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn to further boost corn production.

At present, there are about 200,000 ha of land planted to Bt corn in the Philippines.

PhilMaize-the biggest federation of stakeholders in the subsector-said this could further increase by 40 percent this year, considering that the benefits brought about by Bt corn planting had already reached the knowledge of the majority of corn farmers, particularly in the Visayas and Mindanao.

In the meantime, Yap said the corn sector’s growth could be attributed to better variety seeds, post harvest facilities and expansion of areas planted to corn.