MICHAEL MEDINA
Editor in chief
OROQUIETA CITY--Food takes centerstage in the recently concluded Provincial Development Council (PDC) meeting held at the Capitol, beating other progress reports detailed by the respective board members that made participants drowsy.
The PDC was attended by stakeholders, provincial and local officials, representatives from line agencies, business, banking and academic sectors, NGOs and the media.
Well, anyway, this paper was more interested in reporting the food sufficiency program of Gov. Loreto Leo Ocampos, in relation to his food security initiatives and in the light of the rice supply situation in the country.
Board member Tito Decina, committee on agriculture chair, delivered his production situationer on the province’s major commodities, which include rice, corn, vegetable and fisheries, among others.
As was the objectives of Ocampos in his Target 1000, under the Competence & Health, Agriculture and Maintenance of Peace & Order, Protection of Environment & Social Services (CHAMPS) program, the province hopes to achieve 100 percent food sufficiency by 2010 and increase rice production from 4.2 MT to 6.0 MT while promoting environment-friendly farming practices.
In Decina’s presentation, rice production in the province shows a growing shortfall of supply the last two years, -1,714 in 2007 and a -1,141 last year.
Production table showed that rice demand in 2007 stood at 42,940 MT while supply was at a close 41,220 MT while in 2008, demand is 43,170 MT and supply at 42,080 MT.
The supply deficit however was counterbalanced with the availability of rice delivieries from Molave, Zamboanga del Sur, notes Decina.
Presently, with the aggressive inteventions done by Ocampos and the support of all local governments to help farmers in rice production, Decina predicts an excess of rice by 2009 and 2010, +4,952 and +8960 in MTs, respectively.
Translating these to big figures in metric tons, 2009 will have 42,690 MT in demand and 48,642 in supply while there will be 44,200 MT in demands and 53,160 MT supply for 2010.
Deficiency of rice was no worry as this was compensated with the province’s surplus in corn production, which stood at +10,103 MT surpluses in 2007 and +7,871 MT in 2008, with the produce being supplied to Cebu City.
The corn production figure may even go as high as +12,289 MT in 2010, as predicted by Decina.
Likewise, Misamis Occidental’s fisheries production is bullish, with an ever-increasing forecast surplus from 2007 until 2010, as most of its supply is being pushed to the markets of the neighboring Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon, Cebu, and GenSan and as far as Davao.
More specifically, the provincial government’s efforts now is more on rice production, with some bits of approaches directed to investing in areas that will sustain improvement in rice production.
Decina then showed a chart, which showed that a big bulk of their strategy is centered on field irrigation and technology, environment, extension, transportation and post harvest management.
Irrigation, Decina explained, includes system-wide water management, restoration and rehabilitation and will involved the installation of shallow tube wells and surface water pumps.
In terms of technology, seed and integrated crop management gets priority followed by mechanization and the provision of flatbed driers, rice threshers and corn shellers, tarpaulin and warehouses as post harvest facility.
For fertilizer subsidy, the province needs at least 46,746 bags at P12,000 per hectare. This figure was taken from the minimum bags of fertilizers a farmer uses and in this example: four bags of complete fertilizer and another two bags of Urea multiplied by its prevailing price of P2,000 equals P12,000.
Multiply the P12,000 to 7,949 as the total number of hectares of irrigated lands in the province and we have P95,388,000.
The said amount, as explained further by Decina, will be counterparted by the provincial, city, municipal governments, subsidy from the Department of Agriculture and a bank loan.
The distribution policy set by the provincial government is through coupons distribution, at P250 per coupon and “no loan, no subsidy.”
The fertilizer subsidy distribution scheme will have Bonifacio as the first recipient with a total of 13,404 bags worth P26,808,000.
Bonifacio is then followed by Plaridel, Clarin, Aloran, Ozamiz, Baliangao, Oroquieta, Tudela, Jimenez, Tangub, Lopez Jaena, Panaon, Calamba, Sinacaban, Sapang Dalaga and Concepcion.
This province’s three cities and the towns of Bonifacio, Clarin, Sinacaban, Aloran, Lopez Jaena, Calamba and Baliangao have already started planting this month for the wet cropping season.
Tudela, Jimenez, Panaon and Plaridel will follow suit in July.
Other reports given by the respective board members as cluster heads during the PDC are the “Challenges for Third Quarter 2008-2010: High Priority Projects and Strategies and MisOc Food Sufficiency Projects.”
These reports tackled on FIELDS, Mari-Culture Industry, Tilapia demonstration farm, Cassava production with Korean investor, upland economic enterprise development program, the Provincial Road Network Development Plan 2008-1018 and PDC endorsements of UK assisted Bridge Projects in Misamis Occidental.