Eat Root Crops: DA Urges People

The Department of Agriculture – Regional Field Unit 6 (DA-RFU 6), Iloilo City is encouraging the public to consider eating root crops as an alternative to rice.

According to DA regional information chief Juvy S. Gaton, the DA is urging the public to eat root crops such as camote, cassava, taro, potatoes and yam. This is aside from banana and corn which are used as staple food in some provinces.

Gaton stressed, “root crops are good alternative food to rice. Promoting root crops is DA’s way to make sure that everyone has enough to eat in times when rice may not be readily available”.

DA regional executive director Larry Nacionales stressed that root crops are easy to produce even in areas where there are less irrigated water. Likewise, some agribusiness companies usually use them as sources for their starch and carbohydrates raw materials.

Researchers on nutrition found that root crops are rich in beta carotene, inolin, minerals and micronutrients.

For those interested, the DA is giving free technical assistance to farmers and communities that are keen on planting root crops.

Moreover, DA Sec. Proceso Alcala suggested that Filipinos should diversify their diet to include more vegetables, tubers, and root crops to ease the pressure on rice.

However, for those farmers planting rice, the DA is prompting farmers to plant rice using certified seeds (CS) to lessen costs and increase production as the CS has been proven to be of good quality seeds.It would ease the importation of rice from other countries in the long run.

Plant Certified Seeds

Using certified seeds among farming villages will boost the region’s rice yield this year.

Manuel O. Olanday, the DA’s regional Agri-Pinoy Rice program coordinator, assured certified seeds have been proven to increase rice yields of farmers. To hasten the production and use of CS, the DA is training some 187 rice cluster areas in the region to serve as initial sites for the propagation of certified seeds. It is helping farmers in Western Visayas to grow and produce high quality seeds for their own use. This is necessary so these farming communities will stop relying for certified seeds coming from the DA.

Currently, there are around 40 cluster sites in Aklan, 15 in Antique, 25 in Capiz, 14 in Guimaras, 60 in Iloilo and 33 in Negros Occidental.

Illegal Fishing Summit

Iloilo province holds Anti-Illegal Fishing Summit on Jan. 20 at the Siete Recados, Dumangas, some 42 kilometers away from the city. The summit will be attended by the different stakeholders such as the mayors of Iloilo Province, heads of government agencies concerned in coastal resource manage-ment, and the law enforcers. They tackle the problems of illegal fishing and fast depletion of the coastal resources. /MP