BATANGAS | March 3, 2022 – Dr. Myer Mula, Deputy Executive Director for Fertilizer, visited major warehouses namely, Atlas Fertilizer Corporation and Ferex Agrochem Development Corporation in Batangas last March 1, 2022 to check on the availability of fertilizers for the Regions. Atlas Fertilizer Corporation has a storage capacity of 10,000 bags while Ferex Agrochem Development Corp. can accommodate a total of 470,000 bags.

Secondly, the visit was to gather information from the stakeholders relative to the situation of fertilizer industry in the Philippines. The obtained information will be critical inputs for policy formulation aiming to mitigate the impact of increasing price of fertilizer not only to farmers but to the industry as well.

Dr. Mula was also able to visit one of the local manufacturing plants of foliar fertilizer, Eupapro Laboratories Inc. located in Lipa City where he was able to stress the importance of locally manufactured fertilizers as alternative source of nutrients for crop production. The said plant produces 13,000 liters of foliar fertilizer per month. He also mentioned that local manufacturers shall ensure that the quality of their products will be maintained from production to farmers application and the importance of bottling in small quantities (250ml to 500ml) is more beneficial to smallholder farmers.

Prior to visits to the aforementioned establishments, Dr. Mula met FPA-RFU IV team to discuss issues related to regulatory policies affecting field operations. He also gave updates on the on-going efforts of the Fertilizer Regulations Division (FRD), under his supervision, on the revision of the Bluebook. Some of the major points discussed are; requiring the publication of the results of bioefficacy trial prior to product registration, removal of provisional registration, among others. The revision aims to improve the registration and licensing process for the benefit of the stakeholders specially the farmers.

Further, Dr. Mula discussed the Balanced Fertilization Strategy (BFS) Program by the Department of Agriculture in which FPA is one of the lead implementing agencies of the program. He emphasized the role of the RFU in educating the target stakeholders of the said program.

He was accompanied by the FPA-Regional Field Unit (RFU) IV team headed by their Supervising Agriculturist, Suzettie Alcaide and her provincial focal persons.