At least 63 residents in Palanogan village and 31 in Polahongon village became the new recipients of the local government’s “More Income in the Countryside Program (MIC-P)”.
MIC-P is a training course for compact farming of high-value
vegetables and fruits intended for conflict-affected, poverty-stricken, and
remote villages of the province.
The training course, which concluded Wednesday, lasted three
months.
Selected participants learned the process of farming high-value
crops and how to organize a farmers’ group, the first step for them to receive
additional assistance from the local government.
Diego Domanging, president of the farmers’ association in
Palanogan, expressed their gratitude to those who helped them gain new farming
knowledge.
“This is a big opportunity for us to improve our living conditions
as we were trained to produce high-value crops not for our neighborhood, but
for big businesses,” Domanging said.
The group uses the vacant lot inside the Palanogan Elementary
School to plant bottle gourd, eggplant, bitter gourd, squash, and watermelon,
among others.
“We hope that this is not the last assistance that the government
would give to us. The farming technique taught to us was very different from
the farming practice that we were used to,” said Lito Tobise, Polahongon
farmers’ association president.
The two organizations each received PHP5,000 as seed capital from
the provincial government for starting a farmers cooperative, not to include
other inputs such as seeds, fertilizer, and feeds for poultry and livestock.
“The assistance that we provided is not for us, but for the
improvement of your family. You must continue to enrich your skills in farming
by practicing what you have learned,” said Governor Leopoldo Dominico Petilla.
“We are here to guide you to ensure that your organization becomes
successful, that your family condition would improve, and for you to be able to
send your children to school,” Petilla added.
“But the most important, maintain the good and high quality of
your harvest so that big stores would buy your products.”
After training on high-value crops, the farmers’ group will
undergo training on livestock, honey, egg, oyster, and fish production.
As of this week, about 180 villages in Leyte are already part of
the MIC-P and the provincial government is targeting to enroll 250 villages,
with PHP2.5 billion in estimated earnings.
This target income, according to Petilla, will have a direct
impact on the villages through improved economic
conditions and will also solve social problems, among them
insurgency, criminality, and malnutrition.
Among the top performing barangays of MIC-P are Villaconzoilo in
Jaro town, New Taligue in Abuyog, Hipusngo in Baybay City, and Villa Corazon in
Burauen.
Petilla added that aside from training residents in Leyte, the
MIC-P pool of trainers also extended technical assistance to farmers’ groups in
Samar and Eastern Samar at the request of their respective local government
units. (RTA/PNA)
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