In observance of the Holy Week, the Philippine News Agency’s online news service will be off on March 29, Good Friday, and March 30, Black Saturday. Normal operations will resume on March 31, Easter Sunday.

— The Editors

P159-M road to boost market access of Butuan farmers

By Alexander Lopez

November 11, 2022, 3:54 pm

<p><strong>CONNECTIVITY.</strong> The Philippine Rural Development Program of the Department of Agriculture hands over to the Butuan government the completed PHP158.9 million farm-to-market road on Thursday (Nov. 10, 2022). The 9.8-kilometer road project directly benefits more than 1,000 farming families in Barangays Tungao and San Mateo, Butuan City. <em>(Photo courtesy of DA-13)</em></p>

CONNECTIVITY. The Philippine Rural Development Program of the Department of Agriculture hands over to the Butuan government the completed PHP158.9 million farm-to-market road on Thursday (Nov. 10, 2022). The 9.8-kilometer road project directly benefits more than 1,000 farming families in Barangays Tungao and San Mateo, Butuan City. (Photo courtesy of DA-13)

BUTUAN CITY – A newly-completed PHP158.9 million farm-to-market road (FMR) is seen to enhance the connectivity of farmers' groups in far-flung Barangays Tungao and San Mateo here.

In an interview Friday, Tungao village chairperson Melchor Salboro said the road project will help ease the farmers' delivery of their vegetable, banana, corn, coffee and coconut produce to markets in the city.

“Around 400 farming families from Barangay Tungao will directly benefit from this new FMR,” Salboro said.

The project, with a total length of 9.82 kilometers, was formally handed over by the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) of the Department of Agriculture to the city government here on Thursday.

In a separate interview Friday, KM7 Farmers Producers Cooperative (KM7 Cooperative) chairman Nilo Calipayan also welcomed the completion of the project.

“This infrastructure will serve around 1,020 farming households in Barangays Tungao and San Mateo, most of whom are members of our cooperative,” Calipayan said.

He said some 500 families are now into rubber production covering 1,200 hectares of land in the two barangays.

“Some of our members in the two villages are also into banana farming covering some 200 hectares, coffee with 80 hectares, corn with 100 hectares, and rice 20 hectares,” Calipayan said.

The road, he added, was part of the two projects released by the PRDP to the KM7 Cooperative in 2018; the other was the Rubber Production and Marketing Project with a total cost of PHP22 million. (PNA)

Comments