PROVINCIAL NEWS FEATURES ::
Three Bicol provinces for swine restocking
The program which will run for two years has two types of lending models namely: Compact Farming where farmers are in a contiguous location or sited in one neighborhood; Communal Farming when farmers agreed to rear their animals under one common housing facility. Bicol region has been programmed under compact farming with priority given to provinces are Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte and Sorsogon having the highest recorded deficit number of sows. The program’s implementing guidelines provides that only F1 will be used for distribution, the gilts to come only from the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) accredited breeder farms, and seeds to be sourced from BAI accredited feed millers. A service provider duly accredited by Quedancor shall provide the necessary inputs, technical assistance and buy back-scheme for the hogs produced. The guidelines also require the farmer-borrower to undertake a sow finisher operation. In other development, farmer-beneficiaries in irrigated agrarian reform communities will now plant hybrid rice. A memorandum of agreement signed by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) allocated P394, 000 to cover the seed production for the 300,000 hectares target on hybrid rice production. Also, the DA will give technical assistance to seed producers and F1 farmer-beneficiaries. On
the other hand, the DAR shall provide the DA the masterlist of program
recipients, ensure their attendance in the technical briefing on
hybrid rice and coordinate with DA in distribution of seeds and
farm implements. Also DAR shall oversee the identification and implementation
of farm-to-market road projects that will complement the hybrid
rice commercialization program. The hybrid program for ARBs will
cover the period from May to October 2004 for the hybrid rice seed
program (AXR) and November 2004 to April 2005 for the F1 planning.
|
|
|
|
The
government is poised to implement the swine restocking program to
repopulate hog farms in the light of the reported drop in hog inventory
in 2003. Some P400 million has been allocated by the Quedan Corporation
(Quedancor) for loan to bonafide borrowers for a loan ceiling of
P12,000 each to cover procurement of breeder, feeds and biologics;
pig pen and labor as equity. Each borrower is entitled for 2 gilts
with the payment of loan to be made 12 months after receipt of the
initial gilts.