Local veggies still best for consumers

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet— Locally grown vegetables is still the safest choice for consumers.

This was stressed by regional executive director Narciso Edillo of the Department of Agriculture Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-CAR) as he lauds more than 150 farmer leaders during the Benguet Farmers’ Federation of Irrigators’ Associations (BFFIA) 29th General Assembly at the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) Cordillera Farmers Training Center on February 14.

Edillo said consumers cannot be sure of how the various vegetables and products from other countries are grown, handled and packaged and how much preservatives are applied to them while encouraging consumers to buy those produce by local farmers.

“Teachers feed the mind, farmers feed the body,” said Edillo emphasizing the importance of farmers to the growing population of Filipinos yet the age of majority of Filipino farmers ranges from 58 to 90. This is the reason why tuition fee of students taking agriculture course is free to encourage the young to venture into agriculture.

Edillo also spoke on the production of white corn for the year 2018. While people in Luzon do not consume corn much, the target market for corn is Visayas and Mindanao which are corn-eating regions. Due to climate change, Visayas and Mindanao crops do not survive typhoons.

Meanwhile, acting regional manager Benito Espique, Jr. of the National Irrigation Administration guarantees the continued support of the government to farmers through the ‘build, build, build’ program of President Duterte.

Espique told the irrigators’ associations that for 2018, the province of Benguet has a total allocation of P175 million for the construction of new irrigation systems as well as for

the repair and rehabilitation of existing irrigation systems in the province.

The NIA official said the Irrigators’ Associations (IA) are the prime partner of the NIA especially so because irrigation projects when completed are turned over to them for operation and maintenance while urging all IAs in the province to strengthen their organizations and follow the example of the Taloy Sur Irrigators’ Association, a national awardee as Outstanding IA for three consecutive years.

Benguet has a total of 242 IAs with 9,968 farmer members.