TUBA, Benguet – The municipal government will be using the P10 million given to the locality by Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol to improve the interior access road of a 3-hectare private property which was donated to the local government for the establishment of its agriculture demonstration farm.
Mayor Ignacio Rivera said that the local government needs a total of P115 million to improve the proposed demonstration farm in barangay Tadiangan that is why aside from the utilization of the P10 million given by Secretary Pinol to the town, the municipality will be sourcing the needed funds from the concerned government agencies which have programs related to the development of roads and the put up of the appropriate facilities in the said property.
“We want to establish a state-of-the-art agriculture demonstration farm which could also be converted into an ecotourism area that will serve as an added attraction in the locality to boost the growth of agriculture and tourism in the area and provide the needed technical assistance to farmers to improve the production of their crops,” Mayor Rivera stressed.
Earlier, a private property owner donated to the local government some 3 hectares of his property located within barangay Tadiangan which could be used by the municipality for public use to help in improving the economic standing of the town.
Rivera added that the local government will be submitting several proposals to the tourism department and other concerned government agencies to provide the remaining funding requirements that will complete the overall situation in the proposed demonstration farm so that it would already serve its prescribed purpose.
According to him, the local government must already start to venture on other economic and resource generation activities so that it will be able to provide sustainable jobs and sources of livelihood for the increasing population considering the town’s proximity to Baguio City, the country’s undisputed Summer Capital, so that it will have to get a share from the city’s robust tourism industry.
He claimed that the agriculture demonstration farm must be properly zoned so that it will serve its purpose once the local government will open it to the public when all the amenities and facilities shall have been put in place through the assistance of concerned agencies that will provide the required funding support to introduce the needed significant development of the area.
Tuba is one of the five first-class towns of Benguet but its income is primarily sourced from the operation of Philex Mining Corporation, a large-scale gold and copper producer which had been operational over the past six decades.
Rivera expressed his gratitude to the private individual who donated a huge portion of his property to the local government which could be used for whatever desired purpose because it will help in sustaining the overall growth and development of the municipality even if the mining operations of Philex, which is the major source of its income, will come to an end by 2022 that has been the projected mine life through the years.
He added the local government is also venturing on other income-generating projects that will be established the soonest to address whatever the gaps that will be left behind by mining in the coming years. By HENT
