LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Residents and visitors are eagerly awaiting the various colors of strawberries to be made available in the market following the distribution of the two kinds of strawberry runners to hundreds of farmers in time for the peak season of the fruit by the end of the year.
Mayor Romeo K. Salda disclosed that white and red strawberries will soon be available in the market once the beneficiaries of the two kinds of strawberry runners will successfully propagate the same in their plantation areas in time for the season of the fruit.
He claimed that more than 1,000 strawberry runners of the Snow White variety and another similar strawberry variety from China were already distributed to selected identified beneficiaries recently for them to be able to propagate the same and produce adequate supply of strawberries by the end of the year and the first quarter of next year for the market.
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The mayor claimed that the runners for the two Chinese strawberry varieties, including Snow White, had been initially propagated in the State-run Benguet State University (BSU) prior to the distribution of runners to the strawberry farmers from the different barangays in the municipality to ensure there will be sufficient supply of assorted varieties of strawberry in the market during the peak season that falls on the end of the year and the first quarter of next year.
“We hope that the prevailing difficult situation triggered by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) will improve in the coming months so that our strawberry farmers can recover from the slump in their sales early this year also caused by the global pandemic. We do not want our farmers to successively lose their market but wish for the gradual recovery of our now ailing economy,” Mayor Salda stressed.
According to him, the municipal government will strive to provide the town’s strawberry farmers with any available assistance for the timely planting of the crop time for the peak strawberry season to allow them to recover their earlier losses as the traditional Strawberry Festival scheduled last March was cancelled because of the evident threat of the global pandemic.
La Trinidad is the major producer of strawberry in the country thus its crowd-drawing Strawberry Festival held every March that made the capital town to the Guinness Book of World Records for having baked and served the Largest Shortcake in the world in 2004.
The municipal mayor stated that beneficiaries of the distributed strawberry runners started propagating the different varieties in their plantations to produce sufficient supply of strawberry not only for the locals but also for the visitors from neighboring localities at the least once tourism activities will be gradually opened under regulation.
He expressed optimism the town’s strawberry industry will bounce back from the slump for farmers and the industry to recovery from the impact of the pandemic.
By Hent
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