Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. announced Tuesday the department's plan to  modernize agriculture and boost the farm sector's production capacity to contribute to the domestic economy, especially in improving the lives of farmers and fisherfolks.

Laurel rallied the DA employees on the first working day of  2024 to focus on the challenge of producing more food for Filipinos even as the country faces a prolonged dry spell in the first part of the year.

"2024, is a new year and it will be a very challenging year. As I told you last time, all eyes are trained on us, more on me probably because I'm the new agriculture secretary," Laurel said. "The entire country expects that we could feed them and that we will try to bring commodity prices down," he added.

Laurel enjoined DA employees to stay focused on the goal of modernizing the country's agriculture sector to achieve food security and lessen agricultural imports. "We can do this. But I need your help, I need your full cooperation for the DA to achieve its goals."

Since taking the helm of the agriculture portfolio in November, Laurel has visited various DA offices around the country. He broke ground and inaugurated new irrigation and other facilities, and consulted local officials, farmers, fisherfolk and other agriculture stakeholders to determine a better course of action and gather support to achieve President Ferdinand Marcos' vision of a modern farm sector and better lives for farmers and fishermen.