On the surface, the impression that this farming town could
draw is that it had assumed a laid-back trait following its liberation nearly a
decade ago from the pestering of communist insurgents.
Such impression could easily be made by people traveling
through the 13-kilometer section of the national highway stretching from this
municipality’s road boundaries separating it from Pilar town on the northwest
and Sorsogon City on the southeast.
Villagers’ movements in five barangays covering this highway
section are observed to be easy-going each day—no one seems to be in a rat
race--no rush to work, not much farm activities could be observed and everyone
seems to be relaxed.
Besides, “tupadas” or illegal cockfights happen almost
everyday in several venues distributed among barangays and attended by hundreds
of local aficionados, largely farmers.
Looks, however, could be deceiving as behind the woods and
coconut plantations shadowing the rolling terrain along the national highway is
a huge flat land of paddies tilled by thousands of farmers who produce a good
quantity of rice enough to stand up for the municipality into being one of the
country’s top achievers in the production of the staple grain in the past two
years.
Shared by 14 of the municipality’s 34 barangays—the other 20
are either coastal and upland—this rice area locally called “patag” has been
responsible for a production increment of 18.46 percent in 2014 over 2013 and a
yield increment of 17.69 percent over 2012, according to records of the Municipal
Agriculture Office (MAO).
The same records say that the municipality also exceeded its
2014 production target of 6,341.66 metric tons (MT) by 273.5 percent as it
attained a production volume of 18,985.77 MT.
With these, the municipality was the only in Bicol that made
it along 14 other municipalities and cities nationwide that won the Department
of Agriculture’s (DA) 2014 Rice Achievers Awards given last March 26 at the
Newport Performing Arts Theater at Resorts World in Pasay City.
The same award that provides Php1 million in cash incentive
from the DA was also won by the municipality in 2013 based on similar
achievements in rice production, judged according to incremental rice harvest
and average yield per hectare over the previous year's levels; increase, if
any, over targets; amount of budget devoted to rice projects and initiatives;
number of farmers benefited; and degree of rice seed utilization.
Other awardees in the municipal/city category for last year
were San Marcela, Apayao; Vintar, Ilocos Norte; Cabatuan, Isabela; Bustos,
Bulacan; Calamba City, Laguna; Calintaan, Occidental Mindoro; San Enrique,
Iloilo; Bayawan City, Negros Oriental; Caibiran, Biliran; Labangan, Zamboanga
del Sur; Lala, Lanao del Norte; Banaybanay, Davao Oriental; Koronadal City,
South Cotabato and Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur.
In the provincial level, the awardees were Pangasinan,
Isabela, Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Bulacan, Tarlac, Bukidnon, Compostela Valley
The Rice Achievers Awards are conferred to local government
units and agriculture extension workers who significantly contributed in the
effective and successful implementation of the Agri-Pinoy Rice Program, which
is one of the banner components of the DA’s agenda mainly concerned in rice
farming and uplifting the lives of Filipino farmers.
The Agri-Pinoy Rice Program, guided by the principles of the
Agrikulturang Pilipino (Agri-Pinoy) framework plays a key role in the Food
Staples Sufficiency Program (FSSP), the central focus of the country's food
security policy from 2011 to 2016 and beyond.
With the vision of a food-secure society where farmers enjoy
decent and rising standards of living, the FSSP 2011-2016 aims to achieve
self-sufficiency in food staples.
Self-sufficiency means satisfying domestic requirements for
food, seeds, processing, and feeds through domestic production.
The key target is to produce the country's domestic
requirements and strengthen national resilience in staples production by
applying strategies such as raising farmers' productivity and competitiveness,
enhancing economic incentives and enabling mechanisms, and managing food
staples consumption.
Marilyn Quiñones, this town’s MAO chief, said their
incremental rice production is attributed mainly to the good farming practices
adopted by farmers as well as on the rehabilitation of local irrigation systems
and other national government production interventions.
These developments were realized as among the sweet fruits
of the successful campaign of the government in driving out the New People’s
Army (NPA) from the area way back some 10 years ago when then municipal mayor
Renato Laurinaria declared an all-out war against local insurgency.
That declaration was supported by government forces by way
of establishing military posts in strategic locations around the municipality
that left no room for the NPA members to move around, forcing them to give up
the place after having it under their influence for about four decades.
“Our farmers now are inspired to produce more by the peace
gained from that all-out anti-insurgency campaign and the good result could be
seen from this Rice Achievers Awards that the municipality has won in two
straight years,” Quiñones said.
Romeo Llandelar, president of the irrigators’ association in
Barangay Mayon, one of the leading rice-producing villages here, recalled the
dark days of farming when the municipality was troubled by insurgency wherein
the NPA rebels would take at least 20 percent of the farmers’ harvest.
“Wala na halos matira sa magsasaka, kaya tinamad at hinayaan
na lang na nakatiwangwang ang mga palayan sa loob ng maraming taon (Almost
nothing was left to the farmers, so they became lazy and left their rice farms
idle for so many years),” he narrated.
After the departure of the NPA and with the government farm
interventions, he said, the farmers roused back to work and the results are not
only abundant harvest and high earnings but honors for the municipal government
out of the Awards.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=10&sid=&nid=10&rid=751702
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