Earlier, when we came across news reports that a noodle factory will be built in Benguet to produce vegetable noodles, we wondered how vegetables — particularly the green, leafy ones — can be turned into noodles. Well, the folks at Benguet State University proved that you can make noodles out of squash as you can see in this Inquirer interview with Dr. Violeta Salda of BSU’s Vegetable Processing Center. I suppose this is a good project because it opens a market for squash farmers.
Category Archives: Agriculture
Ifugao Info Center Bags National Honors
By Delmar Cariño/Sunstar Baguio
PASAY CITY — The information center in Alfonso Lista, Ifugao was recently recognized as one of the country’s models in the delivery of science and technology services for farmers.
Toasts were given to the town’s Farmers Information and Technology Services (Fits) on Thursday at SM Mall of Asia here for adopting an information dissemination system that helped farmers boost production and protect their water resources.
Kapangan’s Silk Cocoons
Let’s give kudos to whoever thought of introducing silkworm farming in Kapangan. It seems like its going to be a success. Photo credit: John Javellana/Reuters.
Silkworms give Philippine farming town a makeover
By Manny Mogato/Reuters
KAPANGAN – Hundreds of white mulberry trees have started to cover mountain slopes deep in the northern Philippines’ Cordillera region, changing not just the landscape but also making over the image of a poor farming town.
Up until the early 2000s, the upland villages of Kapangan, a vegetable growing town of 18,000 people in Benguet province, was widely known as one of the country’s largest cultivation areas of an illegal plant — marijuana.
“We’ve started something to erase that tag,” Roberto Canuto, a public attorney in the province who was elected mayor in 2007, told Reuters. “We’re determined to be known as something else, perhaps, the silk capital of the country.”
Continue reading Kapangan’s Silk Cocoons
Dear Ignacio: No Need to Be Ashamed
Our kailiyan Ignacio Canuto should not be ashamed for billing Gloria. Ket inala met ni Gloria diyay strawberry, di dapat lang nga bayadan na. That’s P6,000, pare. Malaking pera iyon. Dapat talaga nga mabayadan.
If anyone should be ashamed, it should be Gloria’s staff because this is something they should have handled smoothly. Isuda ti dapat nga maba-in. Otherwise, Gloria will be liable for stealing if this is what happens wherever she goes, i.e., that she and her people harvest the produce of others without paying.
Ano kaya ang masasabi ng ating kailiyang si Presidential Assistant on the Cordilleras sa bagay na ito? Hehe
Farmer ashamed on billing Arroyo for harvest of strawberries
From GMA-7: The farmer who billed President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for the strawberries that she picked is now the one with the “strawberry” cheeks.
Ignacio Canuto wrote a letter to La Trinidad Mayor Artemio Galwan saying that the whole thing was “an unfortunate and embarrassing experience.”
Canuto said that it wasn’t him who personally asked that Mrs Arroyo pay P6,000 for the 60 kilograms of the strawberries that she and her entourage picked from Canuto’s farm in Betag village last Black Saturday.
Continue reading Dear Ignacio: No Need to Be Ashamed
A Must Read from Maurice
Here’s an article by Maurice Malanes on how we are losing our traditional crop varieties and replacing them with high-yielding ones which require a lot of input such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers.
The result? The farmers become trapped in a cycle of debt and dependency. Biro mo, kailangan nilang bumili ng seeds every time they plant. With these high yielding varieties, you cannot just save your seeds to plant for the next season. You have to buy new seeds every time and, as mentioned above, these varieties require a lot of fertilizer and pesticides.
Who are pushing for this tragedy to happen? Foreign agri-business companies and their local minions a.k.a Gloria and the Department of Agriculture.
By the way, in case you’ve not been visiting Maurice’s blog, he has other must-read articles which are really worth reading.