TABUK CITY, Kalinga – The city and some rice and corn-producing areas in the province are sustaining the rice self-sufficiency of the Cordillera which has made the region one of the rice self-sufficient regions in the country.
Dr. Cameron Odsey, regional executive director of the Cordillera office of the Department of agriculture (DA-CAR), disclosed that the available land area in the city devoted for rice production complimented by the rice and corn produced by nearby areas in the province such as Pinukpuk and Rizal town is already sufficient to provide the rice requirement of the region amidst the shortage of rice production in other regions of the country.
He admitted that in general, the country is still more than 90 percent rice self-sufficient and the government is importing the shortfall in rice supply.
Further, the DA-CAR official claimed that under the agency’s programs, projects and activities, Tabuk and some parts of Kalinga are classified to be its prime agricultural areas that is why the city and the various towns of the province continue to get a bigger share of fund allocations under the agency’s limited annual budget.
However, now that incoming President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. will be heading in a concurrent capacity the agriculture department, major reforms in the conceptualization, planning, execution and monitoring of the various programs, projects and activities on agriculture will surely be prioritized to address the prevailing serious problems of the country’s agriculture sector.
According to him, Tabuk and some parts of Kalinga will surely benefit from such scenario because agriculture is the major source of income of the people and close to the heart of the President who wants to make a difference right at the start of his administration.
Odsey commended the people of Tabuk and Kalinga for their passion to be actively involved in agriculture because they part of those supplying the staple grain on the table of every Filipino family aside from the fact that 60 percent of the residents are members of various types of cooperatives that illustrates their valuing the importance of cooperation among them to achieve growth and development
He pointed out that Tabuk will surely sustain its identity as a major agriculture hub in the region because of the continuous developments that agriculture is undergoing with the appropriate interventions being put in place by the government through the agriculture department.
Odsey hailed the administration of Mayor Darwin C. Estran͂ero for prioritizing the sustainable implementation of short, medium and long-term programs, projects and activities that are all geared towards further improving the state of agriculture in the city because agriculture must thrive with the ongoing challenges post by natural and man-made disasters that continue to pose a serious threat to global food security.
Tabuk City and some parts of the province remains to be the region’s granary because most of its more than 700.25 square kilometers land area is being used for rice production by tens of thousands of agriculture industry stakeholders who rely on the same as their major source of income for their families.
