President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday stressed the importance of agricultural research and development in addressing the country's food security challenges.

Speaking at the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in Batac, Ilocos Norte, Marcos said that MMSU and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) have been doing exemplary agricultural research.

"The research that has come out of MMSU has been exemplary. Of course, added to that, we also have PhilRice; the PhilRice offices are also here in Batac," Marcos said.

He said that the collaboration between MMSU and PhilRice has led to significant improvements in agricultural productivity and knowledge.

However, Marcos said that the challenge now is to scale up these technologies and make them available to farmers on a large scale.

"This is where the Department of Agriculture (DA) comes in," Marcos said. "We will take the best technologies from the laboratory to the rice field."

Marcos also said that the DA will work with the private sector to bring these technologies to market at an affordable price.

"We will make sure that the farmers benefit from these new technologies," Marcos said.

Under Marcos' Executive Order (EO) 39, rice prices must be capped at P41 for regular-milled rice and P45 for well-milled rice starting 5 September 2023.

The EO, according to advocacy groups, may lead to reduced farmgate prices to the detriment of farmers, which is a concern.

Farmers of rice have also raised concerns about how the price cap may affect them. For starters, farmers in Isabela reported that even if the price cap may soon influence their income, the present trade price for rice grains is about P23 per kilo.

The government has previously stated that farmers impacted by the price cap would get financial assistance.