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BALANGA City, Bataan: The Department of Agriculture provincial
office on Wednesday announced that it is ready to meet the
requirement of Mega Manila for vegetables, pork and chicken meat.
Provincial agriculturist Imelda Inieto said
Bataan is readying more than 248 hectares of agricultural land for
the purpose with a large part of the area already available. She
said agricultural products like rice, pork, chicken, eggs and
vegetables are already being sold in Mega Manila but only in small
quantities.
Inieto said she attended a planning workshop,
“Battle Plan to Feed Mega Manila,” conducted by the Agribusiness
Marketing Assistance section of the Department of Agriculture in
Region 3. She then brought up the matter with Gov. Enrique Garcia
who decided to encourage more farmers to go into vegetable and
broiler/hog production.
The workshop was conducted by the Agribusiness
Marketing Assistance section of the Department of Agriculture in
Region 3 that targets what products to supply in Mega Manila.
Besides Metro Manila, Mega Manila is composed of the provinces of
Bulacan, Laguna, Cavite, Batangas and Pampanga.
For ampalaya, the province targets to raise
848.32 metric tons (MT) in the required area of 84.83 hectares of
farmlands. In the towns of Dinalupihan, Hermosa and Abucay, 50
hectares are already available.
In the production of pechay, Bataan will be
raising 128.78MT from a needed area of 21.46 hectares. So far, 19
hectares are already marked in Balanga City and the towns of Pilar,
Orion and Abucay, Agribusiness Coordinator Arlene Javier said.
Javier said the targeted towns and city are mere
pilot areas but expansion programs in vegetable production are
forthcoming. In the supply of eggplants, 31 hectares out of the
needed area of 142.11 hectares are already available that can
produce 782MT.
Inieto said Bataan was excluded in the supply of
eggplants but they have requested that they be allowed to contribute
even 5 percent of the total supply requirement of bagsakan centers
and barangay food terminals of Mega Manila.
In 68,449MT of chicken meat and pork targeted by
Mega Manila, Nueva Ecija, Zambales and Bataan are to share in 10
percent of the total supply.
Provincial agribusiness coordinator Javier said
two broiler producers in Bataan have acquired a P15-million loan
each from the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund of the
Department of Agriculture.
With the approved loan, the two-agribusiness men
will be employing tunnel-ventilated production system used by San
Miguel Corp. in modern broiler production, Javier said.
-- Ernie B. Esconde
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