Misamis Oriental town gets P4-M aid

By: Mike U. Crismundo (Manila Bulletin) and P.I.A.

In support to the government’s desire to attain sustainability and sufficiency in agriculture, farmers in Villanueva town, Misamis Oriental are expected to benefit from two livelihood projects worth at least P4 million.

This developed after the Department of Agriculture’s (DA’s) HighValue Commercial Crops (HVCC) program provided a packing house worth some P1.5 million, in addition to the P2.5 million worth of poultry/ agri-livelihood project funded by the DA’s Mindanao North Coast

Integrated Area Development Project (MNCIADP) which was already implemented in the area.

Villanueva Mayor Juliette Y. Uy expressed her gratitude to the DA for providing support to the municipality.

She said that despite being an industrial area, “we see to it that agriculture has an equal footing to the other industry in the municipality considering that agriculture is producing food for our constituents.” The presence of the packing house in the municipality provided assurance of the farmers’ market.

It is in this facility that farmers produce are brought, segregated, consolidated and packed.

These products will then be

brought to the prospective market outlets in the region.

This activity provided farmers with opportunities for bulk handling transactions.

Aside from that, Uy explained that the facility also provided the residents with employment opportunities especially to those who did not finish college.

Another business opportunity was given to the municipality of Villanueva through their poultry agri-livelihood project.

This provided production support to farmer co-operators to raise their own poultry business.

Uy said that “through this project, the municipality of Villanueva will be having our own dressed chickens

and Villa roasted chickens will be produced soon.“ Meanwhile, DA Regional Executive Director Lealyn A. Ramos congratulated the municipality of Villanueva for its active support to the projects and programs of the DA.

This is one of the municipalities in Misamis Oriental that availed several projects from DA and is willing to provide counterpart for the realization of the project.

The DA is very optimistic that the agriculture sector will flourish in this area despite being an industrial municipality.

Ramos is encouraging the local government units to actively participate and avail of the programs and projects offered by DA.