Ilocano farmer earns good money in cotton farming

Who says cotton farming is not profitable?

Not Rosendo Daradar, a progressive farmer from Barangay Capacuan, Batac, Ilocos Norte.

For the pst eight years now, much of Daradar’s income came from cotton, a cash crop long grown in Ilocandia but has not been widely planted.

But farmers like Daradar have kept the moribund industry alive.

And he has his renovated house and additional farmlands bought to show everyone that it pays to plant cotton in the Ilocos region.

"Adda iti stratehia" (There’s a strategy), he was quoted as saying by Mary Arlene Castillo of ILARRDEC Reporter, a publication of the Ilocos Agriculture and Resources Research and Development Consortium. ILARRDEC is composed of 19 R&D and academic institutions in the Ilocos, with the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in Batac, Ilocos Norte, as base agency.

Last year, Daradar was appointed as "Magsasaka Siyentista" (MS) for cotton by ILARRDEC, one of the 14 goverment regional R&D consortia coordinated by the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD).

An MS is a successful farmer appointed as such by an R&D consortium. An MS must be willing to provide portion of his farm for technology demonstration, share indigenous which he has developed, and influence other farmers to adopt science-based farm practices. – Rudy A. Fernandez