Capiz included in Gulayan program
Roxas City -- Capiz has been identified as one of the priority provinces for assistance under the national government's Gulayan program.
Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) Director Joel Rudinas said that aside from Capiz, the provinces of Apayao, Negros Oriental, Zamboanga del Norte, Basilan, Bukidnon, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur are also priority areas of the program.
Rudinas disclosed that 1,163 barangays in Masbate, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, identified as priority 1 and 2 areas to hunger and malnutrition, were the priority areas for assistance under the Gulayan program.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap explained that the Gulayan program aims to reduce rural hunger and malnutrition through the promotion of integrated food production through backyard gardening in the country's rural communities most vulnerable to hunger.
Yap said that it involves the provision of training to beneficiaries and the distribution of starter seeds, planting materials, trainings on vegetable raising, home-saved seed technologies, organic farming and organic agriculture.
He pointed out that the primary concern of the DA would always be food production, given that the recent directive by President Arroyo for the Department was to pursue with greater vigor its mandate under the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan, which is to focus on food and jobs.
Last year, the BPI assisted 322,502 families in the Priority 1 areas that were able to produce 30,864 MT of vegetables and 407,730 families more in the Priority 2 areas that were able to harvest another 956.72 metric tons.
Meanwhile, Rudinas said that besides the priority provinces of Tawi-Tawi, Sulu and Masbate, the Gulayan project was also started in Metro Manila; the Mindanao provinces of Lanao del Sur, Surigao del Sur, Davao Oriental, Sultan Kudarat, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte, Maguindanao, Bukidnon, Zamboanga Sibugay, Sarangani and Misamis Occidental.
The Gulayan ng Masa was also implemented, he said, in the provinces of Mountain Province, Palawan, Marinduque, Camarines Norte, Romblon, Camarines Sur, Kalinga, Abra, Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro in Luzon and the Visayan provinces of Antique, Biliran, Samar and Negros Oriental. (DA/PIA)