The farmer-partners from Lucban, Quezon and Siniloan, Laguna are now seeing positive results from their modern farming project with the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Plant Industry (DA-BPI) and the Korea Partnership for Innovation of Agriculture (KOPIA) Philippines Center.
On May 18, 2024, DA Undersecretary for Special Concerns and for Official Development Assistance (ODA) – Foreign Aid/Grants Jerome Oliveros and KOPIA Philippines Center Director Kyu Seong Lee visited the sites of the “Pilot Village Project on Protective Cultivation and Postharvest Management of Vegetables.”
KOPIA is an ODA program of the Rural Development Administration (RDA), which is Korea’s largest agricultural research and development organization.
“I wanted to know how the ODA’s or loans, grants, and aids from different countries are helping our farmers. I wanted to know how they are inspiring. I wanted to know the impact of all these projects and assess and evaluate the effectiveness and best practices of the different ODA projects,” Undersecretary Oliveros said during his visit to the farmers in Siniloan.
He added that he was given a marching order by Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel to propagate greenhouses all over the country to increase production and provide affordable agricultural commodities for consumers.
“This is a very inspiring project,” he said of the DA-BPI and KOPIA collaboration.
The project aims at increasing the farmers’ income through the innovative production and marketing of high value crops to improve and sustain their livelihood. Through the project, necessary infrastructure such as greenhouses with drip irrigation system and postharvest buildings were established at the pilot sites. Production inputs, farm machineries, trainings on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), and postharvest technologies were also provided.
Moreover, the project is expected to improve the technical proficiencies of extension workers and farmers in the partner communities, increase the pilot communities’ volume of vegetable production by 200 percent, and increase the participating farmers’ income by 20 percent.
Undersecretary Oliveros expressed that farming in the Philippines is bankable given the right technology and equipment.
“A clear manifestation is what you are doing here. Because of the greenhouses, the right seedlings, the right formulation and machinery, and the technology that have been applied, you were able to grow high quality products and grow high volume of products,” he said.
The DA-BPI and KOPIA are also working on a project proposal for funding by the South Korean government to scale up the project to 10 pilot villages in areas covered by the five national centers of DA-BPI after seeing the current project’s success.
The Undersecretary supported the idea of replicating the project nationwide to benefit more farming communities and inspire many Filipinos, especially the youth, to participate in the country’s agricultural development. ### (Gumamela Bejarin, DA-AFID)
