Road to Food Sufficiency! Kabasalan Oyster Farm Needs P3-M To Yield 40-Tons Weekly

At the mouth of the 21-kilometer long Kabasalan River in Zamboanga Sibugay which dislodges its water into the Moro Gulf, fisherfolk families led by Ramon Magsaysay 2021 Awardee Roberto Ballon have developed Oyster Gardens which produce as much as 4-metric tons of tasty and fresh “Talaba” every week.

Miladel Capitania, the municipal agriculturist of Kabasalan, said that the Oysters are harvested from an area of only 1.5-hectares out of an estimated 12 hectares located near an estuary where a Mangrove forest was built and now protected by the fisherfolk.

To develop 1-hectare of Oyster Garden, the Kapunongan sa Gamayng Mangingisda sa Concepcion (KGMC), the fisherfolk group led by Ballon, needs about P200,000.

While Oyster Spots, the term used to describe baby oysters, are gathered beside the Mangrove forest and “planted” in the sandy river bed, the fisherfolk families have to wait for six months before the Oysters grow to a size large enough to be harvested.

“Para ma develop ang whole area, mga P3-M ang kinahanglan pang-subsistence sa mga pamilya while waiting for harvest,” Capitania told me during my visit to the area last Friday.

The municipal LGU is allocating funds for the project but it would take some time before these could be released because of a tedious procurement process.

So, I made a proposal of buying two tons of Oysters weekly at P40 per kilo, which is actually P10 higher than their current selling price.

I offered to advance P200,000 so that they could develop an additional one hectare of Oyster Garden para hindi din maubusan ang kanilang local buyers.

We agreed that for every two tons that I will buy from them weekly, I will deduct P20,000 or P10 per kilo which would leave them a weekly income of P60,000.

Pero ang usapan namin, bebentahan ko din sila ng prutas, gulay at magandang klaseng bigas na galing sa Cotabato para magkaroon kami ng virtual Barter Trading.

Nagkasundo na kami at tutulongan ko sila na gumawa ng Talipapa along the national highway para pagbentahan nila ng prutas at gulay galing sa Cotabato.

Ako naman, I will engage poor vendor families in my province na syang magbenta ng Talaba at Isda galing sa Kabasalan para kumita din sila.

Kaya ko ikinekwento ito sapagkat gusto ko na maintindihan ng ating mga economic planners sa gobyerno that it will not take a lot of money to make our people productive.

We do not really need to spend hundreds of billions in dole-outs to address poverty.

Dapat ang ating mindset is that for every peso that government gives out to help the poor families, there should be a production of food of the same value para hindi masayang ang pera natin.

This is the sustainable way of addressing poverty in the countryside while producing enough food for our people.

#GovernanceIsCommonSense!

#DoleOutsDontSolvePoverty!

(This video was taken during my recent visit to Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibugay by the media team of the Biyaheng Senado ni Manny Piñol.)