Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Song Mi-ryung has reached a new deal with the government of the Philippines to cooperate for modernizing aged farming equipment and boosting food security in the Southeast Asian nation using Korean machines and knowhow. Song on Wednesday met Philippine Secretary of Agriculture Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. in Manila and agreed on the official development assistance mission. Their meeting follows the Korean minister’s signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Philippine department a day before. Under the MOU signed at Malacanang Palace, the presidential office, the two countries agreed to advance the bilateral partnership. Song and Tiu Laurel agreed to expand the alliance’s goals across farm machines, seeds, fertilizer and pesticides and reopen a joint committee on the bilateral cooperation. The missions stemmed from their agreement to modernize agriculture in the Philippines by further accelerating Korean exports of related tools. “I requested to the Philippine government that ongoing construction of an industrial complex in