Hindi ko alam kung gaano pa ako katagal mabubuhay sa mundong ito o kung mananalo ako sa darating ne eleksyon.
Whatever would be the answer to these questions, there is one thing that I am very sure of – I will spend the remaining years of my life working for the realization of the dream of turning the Philippines into a Food Self-Sufficient country.
Naging personal crusade ko na ito to prove to all of those who ridiculed my idea of a Food Self-Sufficient Philippines that we have the resources to achieve the dream.
Malakas ang loob ko maski wala akong resources sapagkat merong mga naniniwala sa akin at isa na dyan ang Filipino-American Farmer-Scientist na si Rocky French.
French, whom I met only in 2015 through journalist Winchell Campos, decided to leave behind his family in Coachella Valley, Southern California to join me in this crusade.
It was French who introduced the Solar-Powered Irrigation System which he used in drawing water in his Tilapia Fishponds in the middle of the desert in Coachella Valley and which is now a major program of the Department of Agriculture.
He also trained the officials and technical people of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in Tilapia Hatchery Operations.
Together, we are now producing Aqua Feeds and Poultry Feeds using local raw materials in a small village-level feed mill in Kidapawan City which we hope would be replicated in many areas in the country.
I consider French a genius and a dreamer just like me.
With him by my side, we are now touring the coastal areas of Mindanao and later Leyte, Samar and Bicol going up north, to discover the potentials for Fisheries and Aquaculture Production in the many unexplored areas of the country.
Just in our first stop in the journey in the Western Coastline of Mindanao yesterday, French already came up with an idea on how to solve the problem of overfishing in the Saranggani Bay – provided livelihood opportunities for the fisherfolk so that a 3-month Closed Fishing Season could be enforced in the bay for the pelagic species to spawn and draw in the bigger fish species.
Since there is a huge volume of Grouper Fingerlings and Bangus Fry in the coastal towns of Maasim, Kiamba and Saranggani, he will help the local government units develop Grouper or Lapulapu fishcage farming using submerged fish cages.
The first four units of the submerged fish cages will arrive in Kiamba and Maitum early next month.
These will be donated by another group of dreamers – Ralph Cabrera, owner of Inca Mariculture Plastics, and his vice president, Jonathan Cabasas.
Ito ang sinasabi ko paulit-ulit: Kaya ng Pilipinas na magiging major food producer at exporter basta tama lang ang atensyon at resources na ibinibigay ng gobyerno sa agrikultura at pangingisda.
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