SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines - Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala on Friday launched a P32-million rice processing center (RPC) in Sto. Niño, South Cotabato, a project meant to improve the productivity of peasant communities in the area.
Amalia Jayag Datukan, regional director of the Department of Agriculture for Region 12, said the facility also has drying and storage components, and a warehouse where grains can be stored during rainy days or whenever there is inclement weather.
The RPC in Barangay Ambalgan in Sto. Niño town only costs P23.7 million, but the government also allocated P6 million for its initial starting capital, an additional P1.5 million for capacity interventions such as technical and hands-on training of people to oversee its operation and P1 million more for administrative and management fees.
“This is a priority project of the administration of President Benigno C. Aquino III and Secretary Proceso Alcala,†Datukan said.
Datukan said the center will be jointly managed by representatives from the South Cotabato provincial government, the local government of Sto.Niño, the Department of Agriculture, the Firmus Farm Service Cooperative, and a local irrigators’ association.
Sto. Niño, a predominantly Ilonggo town, is a rice-producing town located in the northeast of South Cotabato.
Alcala and Datukan also led the inauguration of a communal irrigation system in Barangay Talisay in Lake Sebu town, also in South Cotabato, after the launching of the RPC in Sto. Niño.
The P32 million-worth irrigation system, which can irrigate no less than 100-hectares of rice farms, was built using funds from the government’s Small Irrigation Project.