Calapan shines as Mimaropa rice producer

CALAPAN CITY, Oriental Mindoro – The Department of Agriculture (DA) has given Calapan the Rice Achiever Award, which cites local government units with the highest rice production in a given year in the region.

Mayor Arnan C. Panaligan personally received the award during a ceremony held recently at Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City.

Calapan is the only city in Mimaropa (Oriental Mindoro, Occidental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan) that qualified in the annual tilt.

The National and Regional Technical Working Group composed of representatives from Philippine Statistics Authority, National Irrigation Administration and DA used the overall production record of the LGUs in their scorecard and qualified it further with its production increment over previous year, production performance over current year target, yield increment over previous, percentage distribution to national and provincial production, and high quality seed utilization.

The board of judges also looked at the LGU’s program on rice, internal revenue allotment for rice program, number of rice related projects, number of farmers benefited, quality of road map, and percentage of employed personnel for rice program.

Panaligan said his AKAP (Angat Kabuhayan sa Agrikultura Program), a comprehensive rice production program which promotes rice seed subsidy, farm mechanization, provision of irrigation support facilities and organic fertilizers, contributed in winning the award.

The last time Calapan received a similar award was in 2013. A succession of strong typhoons such as Nona and Nina prevented it from qualifying for the national citation.

Lorelein Sevilla, city agricultural services department officer, said the city also received a ₱1-million grant from the office of Senator Cynthia Villar for fertilizer subsidy project for 36 rice farming barangays of the city.