PIÑAN, Zamboanga del Norte—Cacao production is seen to increase soon in the region with the Zamboanga del Norte’s Cacao Production and Marketing Enterprise project finally securing the go signal from the Department of Agriculture’s Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP).
The project is hinged on a five-year business plan under PRDP’s Investment in Rural Enterprises and Agricultural and Fishery Productivity (I-REAP), the first I-REAP subproject implemented in Region 9, said Ferdinand Gamorot, I-REAP component head of the DA’s Regional Project Coordination Office.
“It will be implemented in two separate packages amounting to P45.5 million, including the infrastructure component of the subproject,” he added.
Package 1 is worth P33.9 million, consisting of infrastructure support and production, and farming support to cacao production.
Package 2 costs P11.5 million, which will be allocated as enterprise capital for fermenting, drying and trading.
Based on the business plan, Package II implementation will be in the third quarter of the second year of Package 1 implementation.
“This is actually teamwork. This is the work of national, provincial and municipal levels, together with our farmer-beneficiaries,” Gamorot said during the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of nursery and vermicast facility held recently in Barangay Segabe here.
Gamorot commended the subproject’s proponent groups “The business plan was prepared thoroughly,” he added.
Zamboanga del Norte Vice Gov. Senen Angeles expressed high hopes for this project’s success, saying, “This project is for the benefit of the proponents, the farmers.”
“It’s not really very easy to have this project a reality now. We surpassed many challenges. In fact, we are very thankful that, with the concerted effort of our partners, the private proponents, we realized this project,” Angeles said.
The P2.1-million nursery and vermicast facility is part of the subproject’s infrastructure component under Package 1. The construction cost is shared at 80 percent from World Bank’s Loan Proceeds, while government of the Philippines and provincial local government units Zamboanga del Norte equally share 10 percent each.
The subproject is led by Sindangan Facoma Community Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Piñan Multipurpose Cooperative and People’s Officials, Employees and Community Multipurpose Cooperative as member-proponent groups.
Facoma will be in charge of marketing, where it will buy cacao beans from its member-farmers.
“The marketing aspect of the enterprise would boost the income of the farmers, as coop would be buying coco beans at the price of dried beans. This way the project would be able to help the farmers augmenting their income,” said Dexter Patron, Facoma cacao-enterprise manager.
Cacao is considered an emerging commodity in Zamboanga del Norte. Of the three provinces in the Zamboanga Peninsula, Zamboanga del Norte has the most number of cacao growers and has more organized cooperatives now venturing into cacao production.
With PRDP, the three proponent groups shall involve a total of 450 farmers who committed one hectare each to be planted with cacao.
In five years, they are expected to produce some 1.7 metric tons [MT] of wet cacao beans to add the 2-percent current production share of the region to the total 90 percent produced from Mindanao, data from the business plan said.
“The Zamboanga region can help supply the Philippines’s aim to produce 100,000 MT of cacao beans by the year 2020 and onward,” Gamorot added.
Image credits: Sherwin Manual