PBBM, DA lead turnover of agri support to MisOr farmers in Balingasag town

 

BALINGASAG, MISAMIS ORIENTAL – President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., together with Agriculture Undersecretary for Operations, Agri-Fisheries Mechanization and Rural Credit, Engr. Roger V. Navarro, leads the launching and turnover of agricultural support to farmers in Misamis Oriental province on April 22 in Brgy. San Isidro, this town.

Twenty-eight Farmers’ cooperatives, associations (FCAs) and eight local government units from Cagayan de Oro City and Misamis Oriental received various agricultural interventions from the Department of Agriculture – Regional Field Office 10 (DA-Northern Mindanao) and its attached agency, the Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (DA-PHilMech), and from a public-private partnership focused on accelerating the development of the coconut industry.

Highlighted big-ticket project support is the construction of the Mapulog-Tuboran Farm-to-Market Road (FMR) in Naawan town, worth PhP90.8 million (M), and a range of agricultural machinery, equipment, facilities and other inputs amounting to PhP32.2-M, bringing the total value of support to over PhP123-M from DA-NorMin, bolstering the region’s agricultural value chains.

Further strengthening the rice sector in the region, DA-PHilMech under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) also awarded rice farming technologies totaling PhP78.1-M.

Notably, the First Community Cooperative (FICCO), a multipurpose cooperative with over 100 branches, is set to implement the Rice Processing System II project that includes a unit of multi-stage rice mill and four units of recirculating dryers that is poised to significantly enhance farmers’ productivity and efficiency by reducing postharvest losses, thereby uplifting their livelihood and economic sustainability.

Seated at the FICCO’s property, the focal point of the event is the launching of the PhP350-M Integrated Coconut Processing Facility — a project aimed at making coconut into a local economic driver by producing high-value coconut products and targeting an increase in the farm gate price from PhP8-9 per nut to at least PhP16-18/nut.

Under the SUnRISE (Solving Unemployment through Rural Industrialization, Sustainable and Enterprise) project, it promotes the processing of coconut products beyond the traditional copra. These include cocopallets/cocoboards, activated carbon, virgin coconut oil/cooking oil, coco flour, skim milk, and coco water, which is eyed to contribute to the government’s efforts to single-digit poverty incidence by 2028.

At the helm of DA-NorMin, Regional Executive Director Jose Apollo Y. Pacamalan likewise led the project pitching on how such initiative can also help other coconut-growing provinces in the region and other of its neighboring areas, before President Marcos and USec Navarro, and in the presence of the country’s other top and local officials, agri personnel, farmers and other key players in the agriculture industry.

This downpour of agricultural assistance underscores the alliance between the government and the private sector to empower Filipino farmers in building capacitated rural communities in NorMin and improve its overall agriculture.# (JLO/Photo credits: DA-10 Info Team)