Agriculture Secretary William Dar (Photo credit: https://www.da.gov.ph/) “We have survived the worst, rebooted our policies, and refocused our priorities. The next step is to pursue systematic and strategic approaches to further ‘grow’ the agri-fishery sector in strong and sustained partnerships with local government units, private sector, farmers’ and fishers’ groups, and other national government agencies,” the DA chief said. Leading off the new designates is Leocadio Sebastian, who was appointed as undersecretary and serving in concurrent capacity as Chief-of-Staff (COS). He formerly served as executive director of the DA’s Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), and regional program leader of the CGIAR research program on climate change, agriculture and food security (CCAFS) in Southeast Asia, based in Vietnam.