BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan announced that Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol assured local officials that the agriculture department is willing to segregate at least 5 hectares from the 92-hectare Baguio Dairy Farm property to be used by the local government for whatever public purpose.
The local chief executive said the area to be donated by the Department of Agriculture (DA) to the city will be situated along Marcos highway, including the 5,000-square meter being currently used for the city’s temporary staging area for the city’s residual waste before it is hauled to the Urdaneta sanitary landfill.
“We already issued the appropriate directives to the City General Services Office and the City Engineering Office to survey the area committed to the local government for the processing of documents for its donation,” Domogan stressed.
He expressed his gratitude to the leadership of the agriculture department for the support to the city for the implementation medium and long-term projects beneficial to the greater majority of the populace.
Aside from the segregation of the 5-hectare land from the Dairy Farm reservation to be ceded to the local government, Secretary Pinol also promised to give to the city some P10 million for the construction, rehabilitation and upgrading of city farm-to-market road to facilitate the marketing of farmers produce based in farming barangays.
According to him, the local government will study options on the wise use of the donated area to address some city needs, specifically a central terminal for south-bound buses to decongest the already overcrowded Gov. Pack Road bus terminal.
It will be recalled that the city government had been requesting previous heads of the agriculture department to donate to the city at least 10 hectares of the Baguio Dairy Farm property to be used for high impact development projects that will address most of the city’s traffic problems.
He has tasked the relevant offices to prepare the development plan of the property for evaluation as to the whether the putting up of the south-bound bus terminal in the area will lessen or not the traffic congestions right at the heart of the city.
He claimed Secretary Pinol is supportive of the development thrusts of the local government that is why he promised the segregation of the 5-hectare property from the Baguio Dairy Farm reservation for whatever projects that the city needs.
Domogan disclosed that once that the survey will be completed, appropriate representations will be done with the DA leadership for the finalization of the documents that will cede the 5-hectare land to the local government for it to be utilized to realize the city’s long overdue development projects that had been stalled in the past because of the insufficiency of available land for the purpose.
The 92-hectare Baguio Dairy Farm property is under the jurisdiction of the DA to be used for sustainable dairy production in the city and other neighboring areas in the Cordillera.
By Dexter A. See
