By Manny Piñol
For a province surrounded by wide seas, it is almost unthinkable that one of Bohol Province’s biggest problems is the very high price of fish.
Not only that.
Bohol also has vast rice fields but the price of rice in the market is so high that consumers have been complaining.
Meat, vegetables, fruits and other food commodities are priced so high that even tourists who come to the island in droves have also taken notice.
On Thursday, the local leaders of Bohol, including Governor Edgar Chatto and all the mayors, except for two, joined me and Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr., himself a former mayor of Maribojoc town, in a forum aimed at addressing the supply and prices of food in the island.
The high cost of fish in Bohol is mainly because the island does not have a cold storage to consolidate the fish catch.
Fish caught in the waters around the island is brought to Cebu and then shipped back to Bohol simply because even such basic facilities as ice plants are very limited.
On Thursday, it was decided that a cold storage and ice plant will be established this year in Tubigon town which will serve as the consolidation point of all the catch in the waters off the island.
From Tubigon, refrigerated vans will be used in distributing the fish to the different towns of the island.
Fish aggregating devices or “Payao” will also be established around the island while fiberglass fishing boats will be provided to the poor fisher folk.
For rice, the local leaders agreed that the rice farming system in Bohol is primitive, thus the average production per hectare is only placed at 2.6-metric tons per harvest.
Even with a vast rice production area of about 50,000 hectares, Bohol could hardly supply the needs of its own people.
It was agreed that the Production Loan Easy Access (PLEA) program of the Department of Agriculture gthrough the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) will be introduced to provide financing to rice farmers.
The mayors also agreed to intensify the acceptance of hybrid rice seeds with each of them targeting at least 50% of the rice farms in their towns to be planted to hybrid seeds.
Hybrid rice seeds experimental planting in the province, showed that the yield could hit as much as 11 metric tons per hectare, according to Sec. Evasco.
Rice processing facilities will be established in every 5,000-hectare area to be operated by farmers cooperatives who will be provide with P5-M working capital so they could buy the produce of their members and sell the rice directly through the Bigas ng Masa Program.
The availability of vegetables, meat and fruits was also tackled and programs will be initiated to ensure sufficient supply.
Leaders of the province also gave their full support to the establishment of the biggest dairy project in Ubay town which is hoped to make Bohol the dairy capital of the Philippines.
Next week, ACPC officials will travel to Bohol to start the orientation workshops for the loaning program for farmers and farmers associations and cooperatives.
Before the end of the term of President Rody Duterte, it is expected that the island would be able to produce enough food for its people and the increasing number of tourists at prices which would be affordable to the consumers.
(Photos by Allan Jay Jacalan, Mayette Tudlas, Diane Faith Garcia and DA-AFID Biyaheng Bukid Team.)
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