Senatorial candidate and House Deputy Speaker Loren Legarda’s greenhouse project in San Remigio, Antique is seen to boost the provincial government’s anti-insurgency efforts, according to locals and agriculture officials in San Jose.
Legarda, who is seeking a Senate comeback in the upcoming 2022 senatorial elections, had allocated funds under the Department of Agriculture (DA) for the establishment of seven (7) greenhouses in Brgy. Aningalan, San Remigio, equipped with a storage tank and water catchment to help Antiqueño farmers in upland barangays in the area to produce the best quality of high value crops and boost their income, especially during off-season.
At least eight (8) barangays are said to benefit from the greenhouses which houses different varieties of flowers, lettuce, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and high-value crops such as cauliflower, cabbages and broccoli.
Nick Calawag, an agriculturist based in Antique, the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA) is currently overseeing half of the operations of the greenhouse farm. For now, the contractor, Turbo Bloom, is in-charge of the technical maintenance of the greenhouses.
According to Calawag, San Remigio has been struggling to fight insurgency and the lawmaker has chosen to fund the project and build the greenhouse after seeing the many small farms in Aningalan to encourage people not to join rebel groups.
Calawag, however, clarified the budget for the construction of the greenhouses did not come from the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) but from Legarda.
According to him, Legarda has consistently been pushing for programs to assist the agriculture sector, especially in San Remigio—a landlocked municipality where the primary livelihood is farming.
“Napakinabangan na din (namin ito). Yung lettuce nakatanim na kami dyan. Naka dalawang cycle na kami dyan. Nakabenta na kami (We have already benefit from this project. We have planted lettuce here and done with two cycles. We have already sold them),” Calawag told reporters in an interview here in San Remigio.
Local officials further said the project is the first ever greenhouse project in Western Visayas. Aside from the construction of greenhouses, farmers will also be trained on high value crops production technology to boost their knowledge in growing these crops.
Legarda, Antique’s representative and a senatorial candidate under the Nacionalist People’s Coalition (NPC), has repeatedly vowed to champion the welfare of farmers and fisherfolk as the country moves towards self-sufficiency and food security.
The veteran lawmaker earlier co-authored and filed House Bill 8385 or the Integrated Urban Agriculture Act, which seeks to promote and institutionalize urban agriculture as a sustainable land use system. She is also co-author of the Rural Farm Schools Act under Republic Act 10618.