Cassava industry foresees shine again

After the Liwayway Corporation had stopped their operation in cassava business here in the province of Bohol sometimes in 2017, the cassava industry has been collapsed that would badly affect the income among Boholano cassava farmers.
But this dark and dismal situation is foreseen to have shined again if the PNP-KGB Multipurpose Cooperative could avail the grant from the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) under the Department of Agriculture (DA) in the amount of P50 million pesos.
Gertrudes S. Fuentes, Chief-Crops and Productivity Division, Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPA) said that the PNB-KGB MPC is now about to present the Business Plan to Regional Program Advisory Board (RPAB) that composed by the DA and other Agri-line Agency Officials and if it will get a nod then the cooperative will comply other requirements to finally approve the grant.
Fuentes said that RPAB is meticulous in dealing and accepting the documents from the proponent to ensure that the project would be properly implemented.
She said that the PRDP has to look at some considerations as to grant the projects to the proponent and which are the following: capacity to provide equity, must be a registered coop/PO, has a certificate of good standing, certified by the DA, large number of memberships, capacity to handle the project, submission of letter of intent and has an Approved Commodity Investment Plan (ACIP).
Actually, she said the cassava processing project under PRDP has three interested proponents to compete
namely: PNB_KGB MPC, Trinidad Multipurpose Cooperative, and Riceland Paradise Multipurpose Cooperative. But only the PNB-KGB MPC has qualified because it has an ACIP.
Of the P50M worth cassava processing project, 5% of the P10M which is the 20% of the P50M is the cash equity equivalent to P500,000.
The PNB-KGB MPC has 2, 000 members province wide through the chairmanship of Edgar Bag-ao, a retired Cooperative Development Authority employee who has love and passion in farming.
The province of Bohol has 3,346.17 hectares (has.) of potential land cassava areas and 5, 741 total numbers of cassava farmers.
The top ten municipalities who have large areas for cassava planting are: Carmen (716 has.), Trinidad (427.43 has.), Dagohoy (250 has.), Dimiao (239.45 has.), San Miguel (214.75 has.), Mabini (203.5 has.), Pilar (178.5 has.), Ubay (172.5 has.), Sierra-BUllones (75 has.) and Danao (70 has.). Other areas are scattered to other towns in the province.
Acting Provincial Agriculturist Larry M. Pamugas is optimistic that once the project would be materialized the cassava industry in Bohol will definitely jump into higher height which is a great help for the Boholano farmers to have additional income. (Atoy Cosap)