LINGAYEN, Pangasinan – Pangasinan takes pride in receiving an honor for the fourth time yesterday (May 23) as one of the few provinces in the country to be conferred with the 2016 Rice Achievers Awards.
Aside from Pangasinan, the provinces of La Union, Nueva Vizcaya, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Lanao del Norte and Compostela Valley were also cited by the Department of Agriculture (DA) as among the awardees.
All seven provinces received a trophy and P4-million cash prize each with no-less than Senator Cynthia A. Villar, Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, who conferred the awards.
Ably represented by Vice Governor Jose Ferdinand Z. Calimlim, Jr. together with Provincial Agriculture Officer-In-Charge Dalisay Moya and Acting Assistant Provincial Agriculturist Nestor Batalla during the awarding rites at the PICC in Manila, Governor Amado “Pogi” I. Espino III earlier said that the provincial government is doing its best to continuously implement the programs and projects initiated by his father, the former governor and now 5th district representative Amado T. Espino, Jr., as he vowed to launch new undertakings that could propel Pangasinan into becoming an agro-industrial province in the coming years.
The Rice Achievers Award, which started in 2011, is under the National Rice Program of DA that recognizes the outstanding and significant contributions of the local government units, irrigators association, agricultural extension workers and local farm technicians to the Philippine rice industry. It aims to capture the impact of DA’s rice production program interventions towards achieving self-sufficiency.
Statistics show that Pangasinan remains to be the “food basket” of Region 1 as it supplies 62 percent of rice in the region, 65 percent of corn, 82 percent of eggplant, 78 percent of mangoes, and 86 percent of fish.
As such, the provincial government under the term of former governor now representative of fifth district, Congressman Amado T. Espino, Jr. has endeavored to transform Pangasinan into a self-sufficient province in terms of agriculture by marking up various undertakings such as organizing farmers groups to plant certified seeds, sustaining maintenance of irrigation support facilities and services, farm mechanization scheme, among others.
On the other hand, in his first State of the Province Address (SOPA) last May 11, Gov. Pogi stressed that the provincial government will do its best to continue the programs and projects of the previous administration as he further cited the need to have processing plants and agro-industrial facilities in Pangasinan.
It can be recalled that Pangasinan has been elevated as Hall of Famer in 2015 after it bagged the rice production awards for three consecutive years—2012, 2013 and 2014.
By Dexter A. See
