GUAGUA -- The Kapampangan Development Foundation Inc. (KDFI) is spearheading an innovative agriculture project as part of its livelihood program to develop 30 model farms in Pampanga using high-value crops.
This is in celebration of KDF’s 30th year anniversary. The 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 Trustee Sylvia Ordonez said that KDF and the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) have Libreng coconut seedlings for Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Bataan, Zambalez farmers as alternative crops for idle lands and backyards.
"Region 3 (Central Luzon), the Kapampangan region which the KDF serves is a major rice producer. It is our farmers whose farms suffer when typhoons visit us, most recent being Lando. During good weather, the average income per has is 50,000 per year or 25,000 per cropping," Ordonez said.
She added that farmers in Region 3 should be given other options for the use of their lands where they can earn more, such as high value crops.
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.