Farmers look at more gains
with LBP farm machineries
TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, August 24 (PIA)--Farmer organizations and federations including agrarian reform beneficiaries in Bohol look forward to better harvest and more production as LandBank of the Philippines (LBP) turned over the last batch of the 31 harrower cultivator 4WD tractors and 10 transplanters in recent ceremonies in Pilar town.
The release which runs to a total of P42.385 million is Landbank Bohol's biggest farm mechanization infusion in most recent years.
The turn over of the 29 units of P 1.365 harrower cultivator tractors and 10 units of P290 thousand transplanters with plastic seed planters, coincided with the Farmers Caravan, which had government agencies informing farmers of their services which farmers can use.
According to LBP Bohol loans center head Cecilio Clarete, the turned over farm machineries do not include the rice harvester combines and rice and corn harvester combines which LandBank also funded from farmers loans in the government-opened financial windows.
The rice harvester combines cost P 1.8 million and another smaller one at P 1.4 millon.
The farm machineries were funded through LandBank's Farm Modernization Program in Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ACEF), SIKAT SAKA and AFFORD for Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARB).
Landbank has been helping Bohol farmers grow, even before President Rodrigo Duterte took a swipe at the government bank partner for farmers, asserted a farmer organization chairman Apolinario Manigo.
Himself a farmer who used to pay for farm hands in transplanting rice from the seedbed, he said he used to pay for 4 hands for four days and pay for their lunch and snacks, just to have his farm planted.
But with a hand tractor transplanter machine they availed from Landbank, he is able to do the entire work in a day and a half.
"Imagine the savings we got from the costs cut due to mechanization," Manigo directed other farmers to see his point.
On the other hand, farmer beneficiaries who have availed of the cultivator harrowers which LandBank earlier released to farmer cooperatives and organizations have positive testimonies.
"A regular hand plow which is wooden or steel digs between 5-8 inches and it takes time," a farmer BAPPIA shared.
"Mechanized harrower cultivators dig much deeper and (covers much farm lands) in less time, another farmer claimed in another testimony.
The depths reached by the mechanical plow and harrow forks, produce a much better bed for rice and rootcrops, he pointed out again.
An efficiently harrowed bed has a looser soil that is ideal for the growth of rootcrops, which can be producing much bigger crops and better harvest, which should translate to better income. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
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Topic: Farmers in Bohol (Read 1454 times)