Corn farmers to get 4 tractors

THE City Agriculturist Office (CAO) will turn over four tractors to the corn farmers of Davao City to help them increase their production.

Leonardo Avila III, CAO officer-in-charge, said with the acquisition of the new tractors farmers can produce more corn since they can now work on a larger scale with the aid of machineries. Each tractor will cost around P2.4 million.

"We need machineries that will improve our capacity to assist the farmers," Avila said during the formal opening of the Kadayawan Festival Friday at People's Park.

"We intend to intensify our corn production," he added.

The biggest market of corn is not only for local consumption but also for hogs, cattle and poultry raisers, which makes corn business more stable compared to export crop like banana, according to Avila.

"If you depend on export crop, you are vulnerable," Avila said, referring to the possibility of losing global market just like what happened to the country's banana exporters to China recently.

He said the city has large producers of hogs, cattle, and poultry raisers, and many of them have to import feeds outside the city from Maguindanao and Cotabato City.

"If we have primary source of feeds that are locally produce, these raisers would cut on the importation cost," Avila said, adding that this would benefit those local corn growers to earn more.

Based on the latest data of Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) on August 2, whole white corn costs P13.50 a kilo and whole yellow corn P13 a kilo.

The city has about 8,000-hectarage planted to corn, although he has no record yet as to how much is the city can produce every year.

Avila said corn is the second highest top agricultural product of the city, next to coconut.

"The city has 18,000-hectare land planted to coconut," he said.

The city official also announced that this year's three-day National Corn Congress will be conducted in Davao City sometime in September this year.

Organizers of the congress are expecting around 300 to 500 corn farmers from different parts of the country to participate in the annual activity. (Antonio L. Colina IV)