BAUKO, Mountain Province – The Department of Agrarian Reform has challenged the Sayote farmers here to help maintain and preserve the ecosystem by desisting the urge of cutting trees in their attempts to expand their farming areas.
Provincial agrarian reform program officer Jane Toribio raised the issue during the sustainability planning for the development of sayote farming without disturbing the ecology and the environment and turnover ceremonies of the farming equipment and materials under the Convergence on Livelihood Assistance for ARBs (agrarian reform beneficiaries) Project [CLAAP] held in Barangay Monamon.
Forty-three farmers of the Bauko Organic Practitioners Credit Cooperative (BOPCC) and Monamon Federation of Irrigators Association (MONFIA) benefitted from the CLAAP program providing them with farming equipment and materials which will be used for the construction of concrete poles for their sayote farms.
“The poles will serve as the climbing posts for the sayote plant, which is classified as a vine that creeps and climbs in open space, prompting some farmers to cut trees in a bid to expand their farms,” said Toribio.
Toribio said the construction of poles should help as much as they can in preserving the balance of nature as the sayote plants are confined within a given area.
“We urge you not to cut trees in your sayote farms. We must be vigilant in our care for the environment. I encouraged you also to venture into coffee as an alternative plant.-30-
