AURORA -- The local and provincial governments here celebrated the Araw ng Agrikultura held at Agricula Multi-purpose Covered Court over the weekend as part of the celebration of the 409th founding anniversary of Casiguran, Aurora.
In his message, Department of Agriculture (DA) Central Luzon Regional executive director Engineer Roy Abaya noted the over-all rice performance of the region.
“As per statistics, for the year 2017, a total 19.28 million MT (metric ton) of palay were produced compared to 17.63 million MT last 2016 or a 9.63 percent increment.”
Abaya added that Central Luzon shared 3.63 million MT from the total national rice production or almost 19 percent. He also said that the region’s average yield of 5.04 metric tons per hectare was higher compared to the national average of four mt/ha.
He also challenged the province to be included in the succeeding Rice Achievers Awards list to which provinces of Bulacan and Nueva Ecija were recognized, and provinces of Bataan, Tarlac, and Pampanga were given special citations.
Abaya mentioned the preparation of Agriculture, Fisheries Modernization Plan of the region.
The AFMP 2018-2023 vision is a globally competitive, gender-responsive, climate-resilient, and sustainable agriculture and fisheries sector.
DA will start shifting its agriculture and fisheries support program from the subsidies to a more efficient and easily accessible low-interest, easy access financing program to be implemented by the Agriculture Credit Policy Council (ACPC). And of course, to be sustainable, we must be responsible on paying.
He also enjoined everyone to unite and continue the good partnership between the national, regional, and local government.
“All these are cascaded towards achieving enough, and affordable food for every Filipino and to uplift the quality of lives of our farmers,” Abaya ended.