THE Harvest Festival of Lowland Vegetables Technology Demonstration was successfully held under the High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP) of the Department of Agriculture (DA) Central Luzon on Tuesday, February 8, 2022, in Sitio Bagong Sikat, Barangay Tabang in Plaridel town in Bulacan.
HVCDP Coordinator Engr. AB David said the main objective project is to promote lowland vegetable production.
“We aim to establish a technology demonstration to see the different varieties of vegetables offered by our participating seed companies and to determine the agronomic characteristics of each vegetable variety planted on our demo site and cost-benefit analysis/cost and return analysis,” David said.
In partnership with the Provincial Agriculture Office and Municipal Agriculture Office of the town of Plaridel, seed companies (East-West Seed Company, Allied Botanical Corporation, Ramgo International Corporation) in collaboration with the Banga and Tabang Farmers Association have demonstrated innovative methods and vegetable horticulture technology.
Each seed company was given a 1,000-square-meter area, which they used to showcase their lowland vegetable varieties.
Chief of the Field Operations Division of DA-Central Luzon Elma Mananes hopes to continue extending the project and training Bulacan farmers.
"We are teaching our dear farmers an alternative source of income or occupation, hopefully the method used will be applied to their paddy fields to have a rich harvest and encourage the youth to engage in the agriculture sector," Mananes said.
Meanwhile, HVCDP and National Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Program Director Gerald Glenn Panganiban believes that DA programs and projects can be realized and implemented smoothly with the help and cooperation of various agencies.
"We will work together to strengthen collaboration between the Local Government Unit, Office of Provincial Government and Department of Agriculture to meet the needs of our farmers," Panganiban added.
Jaime Jimenez, a cooperator who owns the planted land, was very grateful and happy for the good harvest and result of the techno-demo. In addition, the harvested vegetables will be given to Ka-Jaime who became the chief manager and lent his farmland.
Some of the vegetables grown are eggplant (hybrid F1 and open pollinated variety OPV), tomato (F1 and OPV), chili (F1 and OPV), ampalaya (F1 and OPV), squash (F1 and OPV), legume (OPV) and okra (OPV).