North Cotabato orchard farmers enjoy a fruitful year

KIDAPAWAN CITY — For exotic fruit farmers in North Cotabato, 2005 could be their most fruitful ever in their eight years of passionately transforming the province into Mindanao’s orchard capital.

Thanks to the efforts of their farmer-governor, Emmanuel Piñol, a staunch advocate of orchard farming, there is more than enough supply of supposedly expensive exotic fruits such as durian, mangosteen, lanzones and rambutan that vendors can sell cheaply throughout the year.

In fact, the Kidapawan City government fed local residents and guests with some 20 tons of assorted fruits during a "fruit festival" last August, held as part of the commemoration of the city’s founding anniversary.

According to officials of nearby towns, the taxes paid by orchard farmers increased a hundred-fold, indicating dramatic improvements in North Cotabato’s agriculture industry.

Piñol, now on his last term as governor, embarked on the extensive conversion of the province into a fruit hub immediately after his election in 1998.

"The primary objective of the provincial government then was to really increase the productivity of our farmers and for them to have stable sources of income by propagating high-value orchard trees," Piñol told The STAR.

So effective was the program that even members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are now engaged in large-scale propagation of fruit trees in their enclaves across the province, now recognized as "peace zones" where various rehabilitation projects are underway.

The latest to join the band of avidly enthusiastic fruit growers in North Cotabato were hundreds of MILF guerrillas in the 3,000-hectare Buliok complex at the boundary of Pikit, North Cotabato and Pagalungan, Maguindanao.

The Buliok farmers, about 80 percent of whom are MILF guerrillas, received from Piñol’s office a dozen farm tractors last year.

Eight years ago, durian in North Cotabato was sold at more than P50 per kilo. Due to the big harvest in the past two years, durian, which only the rich used to afford, now costs only half of that price.

"Even ordinary tricycle drivers and market vendors can now afford to buy durian for their families even every day," said Juana Mercado, an Ilongga fruit vendor.

Provincial agriculturist Antonio Balagot said more farmers, many of them Muslims and highlanders, have come to his office in the past three years to ask for information on how to propagate orchard trees.

"It was so nice to see people from remote areas, some known in the past as either strongholds of communist or Muslim secessionist rebels, coming to us to request technical assistance in planting durian, mangosteen, lanzones and rambutan seedlings," Balagot said.

Records of the Central Mindanao offices of the trade and labor departments show that due to the extensive orchard farming, 68,000 jobs have been generated in North Cotabato in the past two years.

Piñol said North Cotabato, as a result of the economic improvements, has outgrown its "bad image" of being the third poorest province in Mindanao.

"In the national scene, North Cotabato, a few years back, was listed as the country’s fifth poorest province. Now there is peace in the province. Even rebels supposedly hostile to the government are now peacefully tilling their lands," Piñol said.

"When there is productivity, there are jobs and when there are jobs, there is peace," he said.

Piñol said his administration’s main focus now is the expansion of rubber, coconut, palm oil and banana plantations across the province.