BACOLOD CITY – The municipality of Valladolid in Negros Occidental is eyeing to implement farm clustering to help farmers produce more rice.
Mayor Enrique Miravalles, in a press briefing on Monday, October 16, said that the town is considered as the second rice granary in the province, with about 3,800 hectares of agricultural land.
MIRAVALLES (Glazyl Masculino)
As the town joins the celebration of World Food Day, Miravalles stressed the importance of fishermen and farmers in sustainable food security.
Miravalles said that he thought of ways to help rice farmers and one of them was farm clustering.
He said that he also wanted to duplicate this strategy being implemented by South Cotabato in which the provincial government extends subsidies to rice farmers.
Under the rice clustering program, the Department of Agriculture (DA) will provide support to clustered farms in terms of hybrid seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, farm mechanization, and other technical assistance, according to Municipal Agriculturist Rosela Bayaborda.
Bayaborda said that a total of 2,491 hectares of land, which comprises 80 percent of the land area of Valladolid, have been planted with rice.
Currently, the town has community rice seed banking in Barangay Bayabas that produces local seeds for farmers to use, according to Bayaborda.
She said that they have conducted series of meetings with various associations of rice farmers in the town and many have expressed their interest to the DA’s program.
With this, she said that the town is also pushing for the inclusion of Valladolid as among the DA’s pilot areas for the program.
Meanwhile, the town will celebrate World Food Day on October 20 with a display of locally produced products, distribution of farm inputs to farmers, and turnover of P4-million worth of goods to the 12 duly registered people’s organizations in Valladolid by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).