TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan (PIA) – – The Department of Agriculture (DA) Region 2 and partner institutions launched recently the P29 per kilo program for low-income folks in Tuguegarao City.
“This is our first salvo and we are going to replicate it regionwide. It is also just in time for President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr’s third State of the Nation Address,” Dr. Rose Mary G. Aquino, regional executive director, said in her message during the celebration of National Nutrition Month.
“We have farmer cooperatives and associations, and local government units that are working along the value chain which are active partners of our KADIWA ng Pangulo offering well-milled rice as low as P29 per kilo,” she added.
It will further strengthen the government’s support not only to local farmers but the consumers who comprise the majority of the population according to Aquino.
She said that one of the department’s thrusts with the able leadership of Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel Jr. is the production of nutritious and affordable food for Filipinos.
Dr. Roberto C. Busania, regional technical director for Operations and Extension, said the launching is in partnership with the City Local Government Unit through the City Agriculturist Office and the Social Welfare and Development, and the Cagayan Seed Producers Multipurpose Cooperative (CSPMPC).
“This is in line with the mandate of DA on Food Security and our vision that everyone should have access to affordable nutritious food. Here now we offer rice for P29 per kilo,” Busania said.
In his message of support, Dumon Mabborang, manager of CSPMPC, said this is one way of giving back DA RFO 2’s assistance to them.
“It is our moral responsibility to give back what we have by virtue of our good partnership with DA. We also believe in our farmers and their role in social development. In this opening salvo, we are selling 36,000 kilos of well-milled rice at 29 pesos per kilo. This translates to 10 hectares of our production area,” Mabborang said.
Senior citizen Cecilia Boloroso from Tuguegarao City lauded this initiative of the department and hopes that it will be sustained.
“Thank you to the government for this program, I hope the decline in the price of rice continues,” she said. (OTB/MDCT/PIA Cagayan)
