Agriculture department releases P52M for Negros

SECRETARY Proceso Alcala of the Department of Agriculture released on Tuesday the projects and equipment worth P52 million for Negros Occidental.

Alcala said the release of P6 million Rice Processing Center for the province in addition to the existing one that was also provided by the agency for the province in line with the rice sufficiency program.

The province will be rice sufficient by 2013, said Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr.

Alcala also released P2.5 million for the Cash for Work Program for the beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4 Ps) in the province.

Also released on Tuesday for Negros farmers were ten units if rice thresher, 30 units of hand tractors, six units of rice transplanters, eight units of flat bed dryers, nine units of multi-purpose drying pavement or solar dryer, one unit of rice harvester, 11 units of steel plows, 100 seedlings of coffee and cacao, 500 pieces of laminated sacks and shredder.

The Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation through lawyer Jovy Bernabe has also turned over a check worth P2.7 million in line with the damages incurred because of recent flooding in the province.

Alacala also bared that the province will be a model for the Organic Micro Nutrient that will be sprayed on the rice farms in the province.

About 91,495 beneficiaries will be covered by the billion pesos insurance fund all over the country under such program.

Alcala also took note that Negros Occidental is now the lamb capital of the country.

Marañon updated Alcala that the total population of sheep in the province reaches more than 6,000 already because the animals acquired from Australia have already reproduced.

Alcala also raffled off on Tuesday to farmers ten carabaos with plows, two threshers, two hand tractors with trailers and twenty male goats.

He also announced that DA will provide a liquid nitrogen plant, a storage plant for artificial insemination for the reproduction of cows in the province.