Forest project boosts Benguet town’s income
>> Sunday, December 16, 2012
By Susan Aro
KAPANGAN, Benguet -- A community-
based forest management program in a barangay here has shown how it could
strengthen cooperation and help a
community grow.
Danny Eke, president of the
Sagubo Multipurpose Coop., adjudged by the Provincial Environment and Natural
Resources Office as one of the outstanding coop recipients of the CBFMP under Agrarian Reform
Communities, said the program helped livelihood of the people and strengthened
cooperation in the locality.
Eke said there was improvement in
the living condition of the community with the advent of the project as
residents were employed in planting wide forest areas.
PENRO provided P50,000 capital
outlay for the establishment of nursery and other raw materials with co-op
counterpart of P70,000.00 for planting and cleaning activities.
Instead of buying all seedlings,
they opted to propagate and use some of the money to hire people to plant which
later augmented income of people in the locality while generating people’s cooperation, Eke said.
In Sagubo, Kapangan, the CBFMP
which started last year entailed
plantation of a 70 hectare forest.
Fifty hectares were planted with
66,660 mulberry cuttings while 20 hectares were planted with 24,440 Arabica
coffee seedlings, said Eke.
Apart from erosion control,
mulberry feeds on silkworm and its production strengthened the One-Town-One
Product of Kapangan.
Arabica coffee, on the other
hand, a premiere coffee has promising
potential in the global market.
He said if all goes well and
mulberry leaves are ready for harvest to feed on silkworm, each member of the
co-op will be given a rearing house for silkworm.
Eke who is also the barangay
captain of Sagubo said they chose to plant mulberry cuttings to uphold their
OTOP.
Forester Dean Cuanso of the PENRO
said implementation CBFMP under Executive Order 263 of then Pres. Fidel V.
Ramos is a national strategy for sustainable development which the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program areas should adopt guided by policies and
regulations.
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