The advocacy to use Modern Pressurized Irrigation and Fertigation, including Solar-Powered Irrigation, for Philippine Agriculture is creating waves not just in Mindanao but the whole country, as well.
Yesterday, as I and my team were on the way home to Mindanao after a one-week working mission in Metro Manila, my brother, Bong, received a call from a friend and supporter of my advocacies in Agriculture, Sylvia Muñoz Ordoñez, Executive Director of Kapampangan Development Foundation, Inc. in Pampanga.
Sylvia, a former Undersecretary of DENR and wife of former Agriculture Undersecretary Ernie Ordoñez, is a self-proclaimed President of the Manny Piñol Fans Club, which is of course a joke.
Even after I had moved from the Department of Agriculture to a smaller regional agency, the Mindanao Development Authority, Sylvia closely monitored the innovations and advocacies I was introducing in Mindanao.
She was particularly fascinated by my advocacies on the use of Modern Pressurized Irrigation and Fertigation using Solar-Powered Irrigation System.
Yesterday, she asked if I could help her organization, KDFI, develop a 22-hectare Lahar Field in Maliwalo, Bacolor, into an agriculture model farm by installing Modern Pressurized Irrigation and Fertigation.
She said the Foundation wanted to develop the area into a high-value vegetable production area and a hybrid coconut farm.
I had seen the area when I was Agriculture Secretary and while it looked like a wasteland, I had long thought of it as a potential area for growing Dates Palm.
This idea entered my mind because Dates Palm grow in the desert in the Middle East and in Indio, Southern California which is also a desert.
(I saw on YouTube a Dates Farm in Batangas but I suspect they planted seeds which is why many of the palm trees do not bear fruits.)
When I presented the idea of planting Dates instead of hybrid coconut, Sylvia was excited at the thought of her Foundation establishing the biggest Dates Farm in the Philippines.
I proposed that since Dates would take between 4 to 8 years to bear fruit, we set up the irrigation system initially for the growing of high value vegetables.
Immediately after I talked to her, I called up a friend in Coachella Valley, Southern California where vast Dates Plantations are found to ask for help which, of course, was gladly granted.
Since obviously Luzon is outside of my area of jurisdiction, I will be getting involved in the establishment of the first-ever Dates Farm in the Philippines in my personal capacity as a friend of both Ernie and Sylvia and an agriculture advocate.
The whole project will be funded solely by KDFI and its sponsors, mainly Kampangans who would like to discover what could be done with the vast lands of the province which had been rendered unproductive since the day Mt. Pinatubo erupted and covered the area with Lahar.
Next week, I will send a team of irrigation technicians and soil experts to conduct an inspection of the area to identify possible sources of water to establish a Solar-Powered Irrigation System.
While doing this, I will also explore the potentials of General Santos City and South Cotabato which both have sandy to sandy loam soil in growing Dates Palm.
The key to the success of this endeavour is the availability of water through precise and pressurized irrigation system using water drawn from nearby rivers or underground by a Solar-Powered irrigation System.
#FoodGrowsWhereWaterFlows!
(Photos of Dates Farms downloaded from public websites while photos of the pressurized irrigation system in my farm were taken by the media team of the Mindanao Development Authority.)
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