Partnership to help ‘Yolanda’ farmers

ALANG-ALANG, Leyte – The provincial government has partnered with a private company to modernize agricultural production and boost the income of farmers who suffered from the fury of super-typhoon “Yolanda.”

During a press conference last Thursday, Governor Leopoldo Dominico L. Petilla said the Leyte government is collaborating with Chenyi Agventures, a Manila-based company, to improve the productivity of rice farmers in Yolandaravaged areas.

The collaboration is called the Renucci Partnership, after Chenyi Agventures owners Rachel Renucci-Tan, an investment stalwart, and Patrick Renucci, a highly-experienced French industrialist.

It will focus on the provincial government’s “More Income in the Countryside through Rice Program.”

Petilla said the partnership initially will cover the rice-producing towns of Palo, Alang-alang, Sta. Fe and San Niguel, and eventually cover all the rice producing towns in the province with an aggregate land area of more than 12,000 hectares.

Patrick Renucci, who was with the governor during the press conference, said that under the partnership, farmers will be taught optimal planting techniques to increase their income from the average R19,000 per hectare to R133,000 per hectare.

“Inputs-in-kind will also be provided to Renucci farmer-partners. This would be in the form of high-yielding seed varieties, fertilizers, pesticides – in addition to the modern farming equipment,” he said.

Renucci said the partnership is the first to offer an end-to-end mechanized rice farming process in the Visayas: From land preparation to planting, cultivation, to harvesting, drying, silo storage, milling, bagging and distribution.

To further raise the farmers’ productivity and income, the partnership will bring in the infrastructure that would reduce post-harvest losses, he said.

He added that his company will eventually launch a high-tech, typhoonproof rice processing center in Alangalang that will produce high quality rice for the Visayas.