TACLOBAN CITY—The creation of an agro-industrial zones in Eastern Visayas will pave for the rebuilding of agricultural sector in the region, said a regional political party here.
“With the region being an agricultural area, there is a need to organize farmers and consolidate farming,’’ said Jude Acidre, first nominee of Tingog Sinirangan.
“In the farmer level, we must organize community farming. Whether it’s production, marketing or selling or buying we must make sure that the goal in every level is to consolidate,” Acidre said.
Citing a report from National Economic and Development Authority, Acidre said that Eastern Visayas is basically an agricultural area with 45 percent of its total land area devoted to it.
“The scale of farming is important. There is no way that agriculture will grow on the basis of the system that we presently have. We cannot grow in piecemeal. Cultivating one hectare is no use, when we talk about agricultural industrialization,” Acidre said.
“In fact, this is the weakness of land reform, it should have led to integration. Yes, they will get their own but in the end, they should have been integrated so that output is bigger than the yield. It should have been our yield,” he added.
Another step to be taken by the group is to ensure that there is “a match between agriculture and our industries.”
“Why can’t we have agro-industrial zones wherein industrial crops are grown with government support and incentives. For example, in our region, coconut is a primary product. Let us look at the region as one coconut farm, not as individual farmers. We must identify strategic locations that can be considered as agro-industrial zones,” he said.
In that way, according to Acidre, these zones will trigger more investments to come in.
“Why are there low investments specially in processing? Because investors don’t think that supply in the region is stable. But once we have integrated farms declared and recognized as agro-industrial zones, we will encourage more investments in the region,” he said.