Filipino farmers’ hope DAVAO CITY CHOSEN AS PILOT AREA FOR AMBITIOUS HI-TECH AGRI PROJECT

By Manny Pinol

With God’s blessings, by the middle of 2015, Davao City farmers will no longer have to guess what crops to plant in their land.

The Philippine Farming Guide (www.philfarmguide.net) which I have long advocated for Philippine agriculture has earned the nod of Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte to be implemented in the world’s largest city in land area.

The Philippine Farming Guide will be a website where by mid-2015 Davao City farmers could access to guide them on the type of soil they have in their farm, the elevation, the humidity and temperature, the rainfall pattern and the list of crops ideal for their farms.

They just have to type the name of their barangays and possibly the GPS coordinates and the website will generate all of the information they need.

I actually started this program when I was Governor of North Cotabato where after a soil sampling study conducted by soil experts who I engaged for the program, the provincial government identified four priority crops to be supported, namely: rubber, oil palm, coconut and bananas.

The priority crops program implemented under a Plant-Now-Pay-Later scheme lifted North Cotabato from the club of the 10 Poorest Provinces in the country in 1998 to No. 27 among the Top 30 by 2007 when my term as Governor ended.

My advocacy is fueled by the reality I learned in Philippine agriculture where farmers are left alone by government to guess what could be planted in their farm.

So, many of our farmers have experimented on such crops as ramie, cotton, cassava, jathropa, passion fruit, gemelina and now cacao without even knowing whether the soil type that they have in their farm, including the elevation and temperature would be ideal for such crops.

The result has always been pages and pages of sob stories by farmers who lost not only a lot of money but valuable time.

In Davao City, the idea of a more sophisticated approach to provide farmers the information they need to guide them started when Mayor Duterte asked me to design an anti-poverty development program for the 13 barangays of Paquibato District, the city’s backwater.

After receiving inputs from the barangay officials and the farmers themselves on what crops they would like to plant in their areas, I proposed that a soil sampling study be first conducted to determine which crops would grow well in which areas.

With the help of friends in the private sector led by my townmate, Rey Billena a retired officer of Coca Cola Philippines, a business group pledged support for the conduct of the study.

I am also supported by a group of young IT experts from my home province, North Cotabato, who have designed the program which by next year would even include a farmers-buyers match-up on-line.

The program has been designed with the City Government contributing only its manpower in the agriculture department and support from the Bureau of Soils and Water Management, Pag-asa and other government agencies.

By next week, I will present to Mayor Duterte the proposal and a draft Memorandum of Agreement between the Braveheart Farms which I own and registered as a farming entity and the City government.

This will have to be approved by the City Council or Sangguniang Panglunsod before the Mayor could officially commit the City Government as our partner.

Once the formalities are done, we will literally do the dirty work of going the different areas of Davao City to gather the data.

I believe this project will revolutionize Philippine agriculture and I am happy that this will be started in Davao City which is now a major producer of agricultural products in demand in the market, from durian to pomelo, orchids to bananas, and fresh vegetables.

(Photo caption: Mayor Duterte receives a soil sample assessment from Malaysian agronomist Siew King Han in Paquibato District.)