TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA) -- The Japanese Embassy, through the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO), has granted funds to help  farmers and fisherfolk who lost their livelihoods due to the onslaught of Super Typhoon Odette (international name: Rai) in December 2022. 

UN FAO has provided funds amounting to $1.8 million (P101,551,500) for 4,000 households of small-scale coconut farmers, agrarian reform beneficiaries, and fishermen in Bohol, Southern Leyte, and Surigao del Norte. 

Around 1,300 beneficiaries from Bohol come from the towns of Ubay, Mabini, and Pres. Carlos P. Garcia. 

“We wish to help the 1,300 households in Bohol from Ubay, Mabini, and Pres. Carlos P. Garcia to increase their productivity and income by providing them with good, quality agriculture and fishery inputs as well as their adaptation of climate-resilient agriculture and fishery practices,” explained UN FAO project team leader Gay Therese Bucol. 

Each family beneficiary will receive agricultural inputs composed of 1,333 packs of assorted lowland vegetable packets, 300 bags of urea fertilizer, 300 bags of complete fertilizer, 100 bags of grower feeds, and 200 bags of layer feeds. 

Six community-based organizations will also receive 1,000 heads of ready-to-lay pullets while 30 community-based organizations will receive 30 units of water pumps with accessories. 

For the fishermen, the inputs include milkfish fingerlings for 31 fishermen’s organizations in bamboo and high-density polyethylene fish cages, assorted fish feeds for 192,915 milkfish fingerlings, and materials for assembling eight sets of drift gill nets for eight household beneficiaries in Ubay and Pres. Carlos P. Garcia (CPG) towns. 

The livelihood package also includes capacity-building and production of milkfish in cages, and retooling on vegetable production and backyard poultry production. 

The financial grant will also provide a set of automatic weather station monitors and trainings for the three identified towns. 

Japan Embassy First Secretary and Agriculture Attache Tachikawa Jumpei highlighted the need for developing climate-resilient livelihoods, considering that farming and fishing are all weather-dependent activities.  

“Getting the timely information from the automatic weather stations, the community organizations in the project also hope to help build on climate-resilient agriculture technologies and use of climate information systems and early warning systems,” he emphasized in his message. 

Bohol Gov. Erico Aristotle Aumentado urged beneficiary households from the three towns to properly use the help so that this motivates people some more to join and support us in this recovery stage. 

Big help for beneficiaries

“Para nako, dako kaayo og ikatabang (For me, this is a big help),” said Alexander Mondragon, the 74-year-old chairperson of the Pres. Carlos P. Garcia Farmers and Fishermen Organization (Popoo) when asked how the project will benefit his community. 

A winner of the annual “Bahay Kubo” household garden competition organized by the Office of Provincial Agriculture, Mondragon believes access to water for their plants could mean more sustainable food production.  

Popoo, which has 700 members, received a water pump with accessories to help irrigate and water their vegetable farms. 

The organization's two fish cages were destroyed by the storm in 2021, when Typhoon Odette viciously ravaged the northern part of Bohol.  

Another beneficiary is the Basiao Mangrove Growers’ Association, which received a deep well package. 

“Magamit ra namo pohon sa among atabay,” said Cesar Escaño, a member of the organization that is based in CPG. 

(We will be able to use this with our deep well soon.)

The Department of Agriculture is set to provide a deep well for the mangrove growers’ group. 

CPG residents consume an average of 1,500 cubic meters of water per day. (RAHC/PIA7 Bohol)