Alegria gets DTI funds for production upgrade

CEBU, Philippines - The Department of Trade and Industry yesterday started turning over facility assistance to recipient communities in Cebu to help them upgrade production and quality of products.

The municipality of Alegria was the first of ten communities to receive almost P500,000 worth of equipment to enhance the locality’s organic farming production under the DTI’s Shared Service Facility project that targets in improving productivity and efficiency of a community’s existing industry.

DTI Central Visayas Regional Director Asteria Caberte said the program does not cover new industries as it focuses on assisting established ones that showcases the natural wonders of the recipient community.

“This is not limited to agri-based industries. In fact, Carcar shoe industry is another recipient of the SSF. This is to bridge the gap especially in terms of technology and exploring other outputs from the same products,” Caberte explained.

Aside from Alegria and Carcar, among the ten beneficiary communities in the province include Compostela, Carmen, Minglanilla, Sibonga (two communities), Aloguinsan (two communities), and Toledo.

DTI’s private partner which also received virgin coconut oil processing equipment is Southern Partners for Fair Trade in Naga, Cebu which, under the agreement, will further process and export the products to its foreign and local clients.

In the case of Alegria, it is the agri-based products that DTI wanted to help coconut, moringa (malunggay) and turmeric (yellow ginger) growing and processing into desiccated coconut, virgin coconut oil, charcoal, turmeric juice and powder, and moringa powder.

Kicking off the SSF program implementation was the memorandum of agreement signing and turnover of equipment to St. Peter Academy of Alegria Foundation Incorporated who has 6,000 square meters demo farm and organic farming center in Sitio Minag-a, Barangay Legaspi, Algeria, southwestern Cebu.

SPAAFI is composed of 1,284 members headed by Dr. Gilbert Magallon.

Stated in the MOA is the estimated project cost of P498,000 for the five equipment namely desiccated dryer machine (P200,000), Deshelling Machine (P40,000), Coconut Meat Grinding Machine (P80,000), Carbonizer Drum (P62,500), and Briquette Production Machine (P115,500).

The project MOA is valid for six years from yesterday’s signing unless deemed terminated by DTI for failure to deliver on the part of the recipient community.  (FREEMAN)