MANILA — Following a landmark law that wrote off billions of pesos in unpaid loans of farmers, a government official said Wednesday the next challenge for the Department of Agrarian Reform is to encourage the younger generation to be interested in farming.

According to DAR Undersecretary Marilyn Yap, aging farmers could pose another threat to the country's food security.

She added that aside from government agencies, innovations in agriculture should also be supported by the private sector.

"The challenge is also to bring in a new generation of young farmers. Let's make agriculture sexy again," Yap told ANC's "Headstart".

"Young people are into data [and] technology. They can look at TikTok and all the rest of social media everyday but that is precisely the system through which we can bring in knowledge and new agriculture," she added.

For Yap, the agriculture sector has been neglected for far too long.

"I think it's time we open the gates. Pour more resources. Plot systematically with a vision for the future," she said.

• Marcos signs law condoning P57-billion debt of agrarian reform beneficiaries

This comes after President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. signed a law that would write off agrarian reform beneficiaries’ debt worth around P57.557 billion.

The New Agrarian Emancipation Act condoned the amortization of principal payments, interests, and penalties of 610,054 agrarian reform beneficiaries tilling 1.173 million hectares of land.

The new law covers farmers and farm workers who received lands under Presidential Decree No. 27 and "who have outstanding loan balances payable to the Land Bank of the Philippines and to private landowners."

According to Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, the P57-billion debt condonation would not have any impact to the country's fiscal picture.

Diokno has said the funds used for the law were "not part of government's estimation of revenues."