AT LEAST four corn-drying facilities will be installed by the Cebu Provincial Government in Medellin town, northern Cebu to ensure enough supply of hybrid yellow corn or corn grits in the province.
The initiative aims to encourage small-scale sugarcane farmers in the municipality to switch to planting corn.
This was discussed during a meeting between Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and with Hubert Go, vice president for marketing of H and E Enterprises Inc., which supplies post-harvest machinery and equipment.
Each post-harvest facility is capable of drying 15 metric tons of corn kernels every 10 hours.
“We want to be able to assure farmers that there would be available space for them to dry their harvest,” Garcia said through Capitol’s online news portal Sugbo News.
Dr. Roldan Saragena, provincial agriculturist, said the corn dryers will be placed in Barangay Caputatan Sur, which is accessible to nearby local government units such as San Remigio, Daanbantayan, Tabuelan, Tabogon and Bogo City.
The governor advised the farmers to avoid planting corn all at the same time or schedule their planting activity so they would not simultaneously harvest the crop.
Initial survey showed that there are 695 hectares of land in northern Cebu that can be planted with corn.
Saragena said farmers could harvest eight metric tons of corn per hectare.
To recall, Garcia led the ceremonial planting of hybrid yellow corn on a 50-hectare lot in Caputatan Sur, where farmers began abandoning sugarcane farming.
Saragena is currently negotiating with feed mills and food processing companies to be the direct buyers of corn. (ANV/TPT)