Around 6,000 farmers in Batac City, Ilocos Norte will be receiving additional farm inputs courtesy of the local government.
From May 18 to 31, officials and employees of the city government make rounds in the different barangays to distribute free organic and inorganic fertilizers with micronutrients to boost farmers’ productivity amid the pandemic.
Batac City Mayor Albert Chua said agricultural development remains to be one of his administration’s top priorities, ensuring food sufficiency at every table.
Recently, the same group also distributed hybrid and certified rice seeds to all registered rice farmers in Batac.
One of the farmer-beneficiaries, Rodrigo Guittap, said he feels lucky as he no longer needs to worry about his farm input requirements.
“Thank you for bringing government services closer to our homes.”
“Thank you for your continuing support to us and for bringing government services closer to our homes,” Guittap said in his Facebook post.
He posted a photo of at least four bags of rice seeds subsidy he received from city government personnel who delivered the farm input assistance in Sumader village.
The city government of Batac, in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, continues to reach out to all registered farmers to ensure they have crops to plant in the next planting season this October.
Around 3,000 farmers out of the total registered farmers under the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) have already received their share of farm input assistance which includes certified rice seeds, fertilizers, vegetable seeds, and micronutrients for soil conditioning.
“Farmers with more than .5 hectare of farmland receive 40 kilograms of palay seeds.”
“Farmers with more than .5 hectare of farmland receive 40 kilograms of palay seeds while those with less than .5 hectares receive 20 kilograms palay seeds,” Chua explained.
In rice alone, the city government allotted P40 million last year as support to farmers aside from a P100-million budget for the city’s modern farm mechanization program.