Food Security - Agriculture and Aquaculture
Due to its extremely fertile farming land and its warm climate, the Philippines is predominantly an agricultural country. Similar to most Asian countries, rice, known as palay in the Philippines, is the main staple food of its people. The region where Plentex operates has ample production of coconuts, rice and cassava in particular but the farm areas are not homogeneous, being composed of a multitude of tiny farms. But the Philippines does not presently enjoy food security - not enough food is grown within the Philippines to feed the people!
The Philippines also has a strong and growing aquaculture sector in addition to its "wild-catch" fishing. Since 2017 the Marine Fish Cage tonnage has grown from 106,000 tonnes to over 170,000 tonnes. The Plentex plan to grow fin-fish for human food will leverage this growth and support from government agencies and investors. This will aid the process of achieving food security by increasing production of fresh and nutricious food and reduce dependency on food importation
Farmed seaweed tonnage in The Philippines has also fallen slightly since the 2017 amount of 1415 tonnes to 1343 in 2021. The Plentex plan to farm Asparagopsis seaweed for methane gas reduction in cattle farming, and Halymenia seaweed for industrial extracts and medical research will add significantly to that total.