TACLOBAN CITY – Farmers in Leyte’s third district received vegetable seeds and fertilizers for them to restart after they were hit by supertyphoon Yolanda from the Department of Agriculture and Senator Cynthia Villar, who chairs the committee of agriculture at the Senate.
Farmers from the towns of Tabango, Calubian, Villaba and Leyte town received the assistance from Villar and agriculture official on January 13. Fishermen from the same towns also received fishing equipment from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).
Villar, joined by Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Emerson Palad and Assistant Sec.Ed de Luna, BFAR National Director Asis Perez and BFAR-8 Director Juan Albaladejo, Philippine Coconut Authority Assistant Director Joel Pilapil, distributed 10 motorized bancas, 500 bags of different vegetables and fruit seeds for backyard gardening which includes kang kong, cucumber, tomato, water melon and mass melon per town in the district.
They also distributed 10 bags of corn seeds of 18 kg /bag and 125 coconut seedlings, initial with entitlement and certificate of maximum 500 per farmer based on 100 coconut seedlings per 1 hectare from PCA.
Sen. Villar also distributed 500 food packs; 115 sacks of fertilizer and 400 corrugated sheets and two boxes of umbrella nails good for 100 families in each towns of the district. Each family will receive 4 pieces of GI sheets and half a kilo of nails.
The senator emphasized that what they have distributed was a continuous program of the DA wherein the department will continue to distribute vegetables seeds for inter -cropping while for coconut seeds an additional of more than 20,000 seedlings will be distributed for the next six months.
She also said that an additional number of motorized fishing boats are expected to be given to all fishermen within the next six months. (LIZBETH ANN A. ABELLA)
