During the floods in Agusan del Sur in January 2017, I personally saw a huge problem which needed government intervention as farming families go hungry for about two to three months each year as it would take that long before the water subsides.
It was then, as Secretary of Agriculture, when I designed the Survival and Recovery (SURE) loan program which provides farming and fishing families a no-interest loan of P25,000 each payable in three years to help them survive and recover.
The SURE Loaning is now a national program implemented by the Department of Agriculture and also embraced by the Land Bank of the Philippines.
While I was able to come up with the SURE Loan program to help the farmers, I failed to come up with a solution to the lack of animal feeds during the period of floods.
Yesterday, however, a short lecture and field demonstration on how to make silage from Sorghum leaves and stalks in Bayugan City, Agusan del Sur provided an answer on how farmers could save their farm animals from hunger during the season of floods.
Agusan del Sur’s flatlands by the banks of the mighty Agusan River are flooded for a period of one to two months almost every year and farming families and their work animals are moved to higher grounds.
Flood-affected farming families are supported by government but the absence of grazing areas and feeds force farmers to sell their carabaos and other animals.
The Provincial Government has established Animal Evacuation Centers and planted forage near these areas but this is not enough to feed the animals.
A lecture by cattle and small ruminants nutritionist Arnel Corpuz, a former Overseas Filipino Worker who managed a 50,000-head Wagyu feedlot in Australia for 11 years taught local agriculture officials and farmers groups on how to prepare silage from Sorghum leaves and stalks.
The result was a program which will be implemented by the Economic Enterprise Office of the Provincial Government of Agusan del Sur which will prepare silage in bags to be supplied to the farmers during the season of floods.
This will form part of the provincial government’s disaster interventions for farming families so that the farmers could keep their farm animals well-fed even in the absence of grazing areas.
The program is expected to provide additional income for farmers who will plant Sorghum and other crops for silage.
It happened because the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) took an extra effort to find a simple answer to an age-old problem.
#KungGustoMaramingParaan!
#GovernanceIsCommonSense!
(The first two photos were taken when, as Secretary of Agriculture, I visited the flooded areas of Bunawan, Agusan del Sur in January 2017. The other photos were taken yesterday by Mayette Tudlas and the MinDA Media Team during the field demonstration on silage-making conducted by former OFW Arnel Corpuz.)
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