Who says agriculture graduates shy away from working on the farms?
Not those in Nueva Vizcaya, who are leaving their jobs in cities and other centers of population to make use of their expertise in the province’s Malabing Valley, now the “citrus bowl of the Cagayan Valley.”
This “Philippine migration pattern in reverse” has been brought about by Project Malabing Valley started in 1988 under the then Nueva Vizcaya State Institute of Technology (NVSIT), now Nueva Vizcaya State University (NVSU), currently headed by a woman president, Dr. Marilou Santos Gilo-Avon.
Then, the Malabing Valley was a sad picture of underdevelopment, with no roads (thus “unreachable”), no electricity, and no potable water system.
Villagers in the remote barangays of Malabing, Binogawan, Wangal, Capisaan, Papaya, and Tadji used to spend days on foot to reach the town of Kasibu. Only six-by-six trucks and weapons carriers could traverse the almost impassable river trails.
The presence of government agencies was almost nil except for the Kasibu municipal service agencies.
All this is past, thanks to Project Malabing Valley, which has transformed this domain of the Bugkalot tribe into the “citrus bowl of Cagayan Valley.”
Since the PMV was started in 1988, several government and non-government agencies have supported research and development (R&D) activities in the valley.
For instance, the PMV supported the establishment of the Malabing Valley Multi-purpose Cooperative (NVMPC) and pushed the development of the citrus industry in the area.
Strategies under AEOP-NVSU included the conduct of barangay development laboratory, creation of people’s organizations or cooperatives, and provision of training to promote potential agricultural commodity projects. In the BDL, an agricultural institution encourages and guides villagers to establish entrepreneurial projects.
Now money virtually grows on fruit trees in the valley, and this is the reason why the younger generations in the region are going back to the farms instead of to the cities.