CASIGURAN, AURORA—As part of the celebration of the 409th founding anniversary of Casiguran, the local goverment unit and provincial government here celebrated the Araw ng Agrikultura held at Agricula Multi-purpose Covered Court on June 08.
In his message, Department of Agriculture in Central Luzon Regional Executive Director Engr. Roy M. Abaya noted the over-all rice performance of the region.
“As per statistics, for the year 2017, a total 19.28 million MT of palay were produced compared to 17.63 million MT last 2016 or a 9.63% increment.”
Abaya added that Central Luzon shared 3.63 million MT from the total national rice production or almost 19%. He also said that the region’s average yield of 5.04 metric tons per hectare was higher compared to the national average of 4 mt/ha.
He also challeged the province to be included in the succeeding Rice Achievers Awards list to which provinces of Bulacan and Nueva Ecija were recognized, and provinces of Bataan, Tarlac, and Pampanga were given special citations.
Abaya mentioned the preparation of Agriculture, Fisheries Modernization Plan of the region.
The AFMP 2018-2023 vision is a globally competitive, gender-responsive, climate-resilient, and sustainable agriculture and fisheries sector.
GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE
By 2023, the average production cost will be from 13 pesos to 8 pesos per kilogram, from 16% to 14% production losses, and average yield of 6 metric tons per hectare from 4 mt/ha. And the continuous distribution of modern farm machineries.
GENDER-RESPONSIVE
As we observed, more women are now involved in agriculture. In fact out of the seven provinces, we have three women Provincial Agriculturists.
CLIMATE-RESILIENT
The DA through the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) develops stress-tolerant rice varieties and promotes new technologies. Also next week, President Rodrigo Duterte will lead the inauguration of the 1st Solar-Powered Irrigation System (SPIS) in Central Luzon.
SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES SECTOR
The Department through the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) conducts series of trainings in order to teach our farmers and fisherfolks.
DA will start shifting its agriculture and fisheries support program from the subsidies to a more efficient and easily accessible low-interest, easy access financing program to be implemented by the Agriculture Credit Policy Council (ACPC). And of course, to be sustainable, we must be responsible on paying.
He also enjoined everyone to unite and continue the good partnership between the national, regional, and local government.
“All these are cascaded towards achieving enough, and affordable food for every Filipino and to uplift the quality of lives of our farmers.” Abaya ended
During the second part of the program, the awarding of indemnity checks from the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation, awarding of farm machineries from the livelihood assistance to farmers and fisherfolks of Casiguran, and awarding of BFAR intervention were held.###
Ozanne Ono Allas
Information Officer II
DA Central Luzon