I, Farm Boy! World’s Sweetest Jackfruit Goes To Loreto, Dinagat Is.

The EVIARC Sweet, also known as Abuyog Sweet, reputed to be the Sweetest Langka in the world, will soon be growing in wide areas in the small town of Loreto, one of the seven towns in the Islands Province of Dinagat which used to be part of Surigao del Norte.
Loreto town is “endowed with rich mineral resources like aluminous laterite ore, chromite, gold, niceliferous laterite, sand and gravel, guano, rock phosphate, limestone, and siliceous sand. It is also considered as an excellent fishing ground.”
Loreto Mayor Doandre Bill Ladaga, however, believes that his town should focus on food production to complement the bountiful catch from the seas fronting the town.
Yesterday, he and his young wife came to visit me in the farm to initially buy 250 seedlings of the Abuyog Sweet, a jackfruit variety developed by the Eastern Visayas Agricultural Research Center (EVIARC) in Abuyog, Leyte.
He also bought 100 planting materials of the Golden Mondo Saba propagated by Kidapawan City Tissue Culture Expert Jay Mearns.
I gave him and his wife an on-field lecture on Jackfruit propagation and explained to him the potentials of the jackfruit industry.
While Jackfruit is one of the iconic fruit trees found in many areas of the Philippines, the country imports P500-M worth of it from Vietnam every year.
I explained to Mayor Ladaga that the fruit industry of the country has not grown because of the mindset of many farmers of planting just a few of each and every variety in their backyard for their own consumption.
I said that there should be a shift to an industry-level fruit tree farming to produce volume so that it would gain access in the market.
Encouraged by my explanation, Mayor Ladaga said he will turn his town into a major jackfruit production area because of the great demand not only among locals but also the growing number of tourists who visit the islands every year.
The couple stayed for about three hours in the farm before they took off on a 12-hour journey back home to the islands.
I was happy that I was able to influence another young local chief executive to focus on food production as the key component of effective governance.

#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!
(Video by Kat Fracesca Bahinting)