MikeLigalig.com

By Rey Anthony Chiu
Philippine Information Agency - Bohol

In a bid to motivate more farmers to resuscitate the coconut industry, the Philippine Coconut Authority has launched its Participatory Coconut Planting Project recently, Philippine Coconut Authority in Bohol Manager Timoteo Lago Jr. announced.

The project, which aims to revive the industry that has been the backbone of the country’s economy in the past years, gives as much as P30 per coconut tree planted.

Reeling after a disastrous attack of brontista loggisima, the country’s coconut authorities have pegged on another bout of planting, to prop up the billion-peso coconut industry, PCA authorities said during the weekly Kapihan sa PIA. 

The incentive for Filipino farmers is given only to those who can show proof that they have in joined the program, bares a handout shared by the PCA.

A farmer needs only to have established a coconut seed-bed of any size and capacity by January 30 2008.

He could immediately earn the P5 per coconut seed as incentive when, upon inspection by PCA authorities, he can show to them a pre-determined prepared area upon which his seedling would be planted after five months. 

In caring for the seeds immediately upon seeding until the initial months before replanting at the farm site, the farmer gets an additional P5 incentive for every healthy seedling in his seedbed, which has grown to not less than 2 feet. These seedlings should be ready on or before July 30, 2008 to qualify for the additional incentive.

After replanting and upon verification by the PCA that the established farm has been cared for, for at least until November 30, 2008, every health coconut seedling that has grown to a measurement of at least three feet earns the farmer another P20.

This brings to P30, as the entire amount the farmer gets for a single seedling that he has effectively seeded, cared for and replanted in a farm, Lago explained.

The farmer would be awarded the entire incentive through a check, which would be personally handed over to him by the sponsoring agency.

The program, according to Lago is a breakthrough partnership project of the Department of Agriculture through Secretary Arthur Yap and the PCA through Administrator Oscar Garin, with the cooperation of a private coco-oil mill and its President, Danila Coronacion.


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