CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- The Kapampangan Development Foundation (KDF) over the weekend inaugurated its nursery for high-value crops in Barangay Maliwalu that will dispense the best crop varieties to Central Luzon farmers.

The facility is Department of Agriculture and Bureau of Plant Industry-accredited.

“Region 3 (Central Luzon), the Kapampangan region which the KDF serves is a major rice producer. It is our farmers who suffer when typhoons visit us, most recent being Lando. During good weather, the average income per hectare is 50,000 per year or 25,000 per cropping,” Ordonez said.

She added that farmers in Central Luzon should be given other options for the use of their lands where they can earn more, such as high-value crops.

Aside from the said farm, some 30 hectares are being developed by KDF in Pampanga to serve as models for farmers to get out of poverty and earn a good income.

KDF in partnership with the PCA and Department of Agriculture-Central Luzon will plant one million coconuts and inter-crop them with High Value Crops like Cacao, Lanzones, Rambutan, Durian, Achete, tamarind etc.

Cacao alone gives the farmer additional P150,000 income to what one can earn from one hectare of coconut.

The group targeted 300,000 for carabao mangoes, 100,000 for rambutan and 100,000 for longkong (a Thailand variety of lansones) in various areas of Central Luzon.

This as KDF, a non-government civic service group, is now set to plant an additional one million coconut trees in Central Luzon as supplement to its earlier initiative of planting one million fruit trees in various provinces of the region using certified seeds.