3 Bukidnon farmers win ‘Gawad Saka’ in Region 10

MALAYBALAY CITY (Bukidnon News/07 December) Three farmers from
Bukidnon who practiced integrated farming won in the regional selection for the Department of Agriculture’s ‘Gawad Saka,’ according to the Provincial Agriculture Office.

DAR re-installs farmers in Ocaya Ranch in Maramag

MALAYBALAY CITY – (Bukidnon News/04 December) The Department of Agrarian Reform in South Bukidnon re-installed farmer beneficiaries in a portion of the Ocaya Ranch in Brgy. Kuya, Maramag, Bukidnon, according to a press release by Task Force Mapalad, the group assisting the farmers.

Bukidnon SP to pass organic agriculture code

MALAYBALAY CITY(Bukidnon News Dispatch / 21 November 2011) – The provincial board of Bukidnon is poised to pass its Organic Agriculture Act of Bukidnon 2011, providing for the local government to mainstream organic agriculture as the main agriculture practice in the province, according to the draft of the proposed ordinance sponsored by board member Ranulfo Pepito.

Korean researcher eyes Bukidnon as a ‘honey paradise’

MALAYBALAY CITY – [Bukidnon News Dispatch / 04 November 2011) Lee Jong Hyuk, a Korean volunteer engaged in research in the honey bee industry has opened a demo farm in the site of the defunct Bukidnon Resources Co. Inc. (BRCI) in Dicklum, Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon to help boost the province’s honey bee industry.

Bukidnon task force to probe banana disease – Quimba

MALAYBALAY CITY  (Bukidnon News/03 November) The Provincial
Agriculture Office has composed a fact-finding team to probe reports
that a fungal disease has infected about a thousand hectares of banana
plantations in the province, Engr. Alson Quimba, provincial
agriculturist said Thursday.

Quimba said representatives from the PAO, the DA Regional Banana Task
Force, and the Central Mindanao University will compose the
locally-initiated task force. The team, which includes a team of
pathologists or experts of plant diseases, will conduct inspections in
the banana plantations on November 8 to 10.

He added that the subjects for the fact-finding team are the
plantations of Dole Philippines, Agrinanas Development Co., Inc.
(ADCI), Mt. Kitanglad Agri-Ventures, Inc, Muleta Agri-Development
Corp.

Quimba said the task force is in response to a resolution passed by
the Sangguniang Panlalawigan in September this year urging Quimba to
verify reports in the media about the disease.

Board member Jay Albarece (1st district), who authored the resolution,
urged provincial agriculturist Alson Quimba to verify an ABS-CBN
report attributed to the Davao-based Pilipino Banana Growers and
Exporters Association (PBGEA) that a fungus called Fusarium oxysporum
may have found its way to Bukidnon.

The fungus, also called Panama disease, is resistant to fungicide,
Albarece noted in his resolution.

He said it could be the same fungus that contaminated some plantations
in Compostela Valley and most recently in Santo Tomas in Davao del
Norte.

Quimba said earlier he has no information so far about the reported
presence of the Panama disease in Bukidnon’s plantations. He refused
to elaborate in September.

Bukidnon has around 20,000 to 25,000 hectares of land planted to
banana, he said.

Albarece cited that the province hosts a number of highland banana
plantations, which employ thousands of regular employees.

“The outbreak of dreaded disease in its (Bukidnon) fertile plateaus is
feared to bring about unthinkable adverse economic and social
repercussions to the entire province and its people,” he said, then.

“If the reports of the disease’s presence in the province are true,
the spread of the banana ailment should be immediately controlled and
contained to prevent the same from spreading to the unaffected banana
plantations in the province,” he added.

But Albarace said that if the reports were false, then Bukidnon must
immediately declare it is “Panama disease-free.”

He said that though there are environmental issues related to the
presence of banana plantations in Bukidnon, the province is not ready
to face an employment crisis if the industry players decide to stop
operations owing to the alleged existence of the disease.

In December last year, banana firm Agrinanas Development Co. Inc.
(ADCI) filed a notice of closure at the Department of Labor and
Employment, a move that threatens to displace at least 2000 workers.

Tago G. Sarigan, chief of the DOLE-10’s technical services support
division, said the firm cited “marketing problems” among others.

Another labor official, who asked not to be named for lack of
authority to speak on the matter, said the firm cited “high cost of
production” brought about by alleged widespread Moko and Panama
disease infestation in its banana plantations.

Albarece said that ADCI initially told its laborers they were closing
down because of Panama disease. But he said the company did not
confirm it in hearings with the labor office and the labor unions.

As of April, the company planned to retain only 850 of some 3,000
hectares of its plantations and only 1,000 of its 2,200 regular
employees. (Walter I. Balane/Bukidnon News)

Alcala on P30M NIA organic fertilizer project: ‘reorient’ only

VALENCIA CITY (Bukidnon News/24 October) – Agriculture Sec. Proceso Alcala has approved the Department of Agriculture 10’s recommendations to withdraw and replace substandard organic fertilizers and re-orient the bids and awards committee officials behind the questionable National Irrigation Administration’s P30-million bio-organic fertilizer subsidy program.

Bukidnon peasants in march vs. landlessness: stop land conversions in Bukidnon

MALAYBALAY CITY (Bukidnon News/20 October) –One of the biggest threats
to farmers in Bukidnon is the issue of the continuing conversions of
rice and corn farms to agricultural-industrial plantations, Danilo
Menente, Kasama-Bukidnon chairperson told this reporter via telephone
Thursday.

Bukidnon, MisOr. peasants to march for ‘genuine agrarian reform, against rights abuses

MALAYBALAY CITY (Bukidnon News Dispatch/13 October) Some 10,000 peasants from Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental are expected to march from Bukidon and Misamis Oriental from October 19 to 21 and converge in Cagayan de Oro City to drumbeat their demand for genuine agrarian reform in Northern Mindanao, organizers said in a statement emailed to Bukidnon News Thursday.

Sumilao farmers: marching protesters of the past; today’s agri-entrepreneurs

SAN VICENTE, Sumilao, Bukidnon (Bukidnon News Dispatch/10 October) Every day, Sumilao farmer Wenefrido San-ajan, 39, wakes up at 4a.m. and goes straight to his farm. Jun-jun as he is called by neighbors, tills almost a hectare of corn farm. But he said since he started learning about vegetable gardening in 2008, he has changed his attitude towards farming.

Malaybalay’s Social Action Center pilots 2 villages in leadership drive

MALAYBALAY CITY – (Bukidnon News Dispatch/07 October) To address poverty and lack of livelihood opportunities at the village level, the church has to do its role in social action. In Bukidnon, the Diocese of Malaybalay has changed tack. Before organizing livelihood projects, they are now engaging the communities in a community leadership drive using ‘model villages’.

NCIP revokes compliance certificate issued to Bukidnon ranch occupant

MALAYBALAY CITY (Bukidnon News / 30 Sept) – The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, sitting en banc, decided to annul the compliance certificate it issued to a ranch operator in Maramag, Bukidnon, reversing a verdict it made more than three years ago, according to a copy of its decision furnished by petitioner Panalsalan Dagumbaan Tribal Association (Padata).

In its September 20, 2011 decision, released only on September 28 and was emailed to Bukidnon News a day after, the commission en banc granted Padata’s petition to annul or recall Compliance Certificate No. CCRX-08-7-150 issued to respondent Engr. Ernesto Villalon.

The decision came more than a month after the killing of 28-year old farmer Welcie Gica, who was reported shot by security guards hired by the Villalons in Panalsalan village to secure the ranch. Gica, father of two, joined fellow Padata members who staged a protest  in the ranch on August 24, 2011 when they were confronted by the guards.

Capitol intensifies ‘Greening’ Program

MALAYBALAY CITY(Bukidnon News Dispatch/ 29 Sept.) — About 400 Benguet Pines and 1,300 Mahogany Seedlings were dispersed to be planted, mobilizing majority of the provincial government employees of Bukidnon for the tree-planting activity last September 23 at the Provincial Tree Park.

Rehab of Rio Grande de Mindanao, “a high priority, high impact” project

MALAYBALAY CITY (Bukidnon News Dispatch/ 29 Sept)– The Rehabilitation of the Rio Grande de Mindanao is one of the 10 high priority and high impact proposed projects as presented in the Mindanao River Basin Integrated Management and Development Plan, a copy of which was obtained by Bukidnon News.

In the last chapter of the 16-chapter master plan released in July 2011, the Presidential Task Force on the Mindanao River Basin Rehabilitation and Development outline the selected priority projects based on a list of programs and interventions “extensively and exhaustively” reviewed by the task force’s technical working group.

SPECIAL REPORT: Tribal leaders to withhold support for Pulangui V

By Carrell C. Magno and Laurie Ailynne M. Benito
Bangsamoro Center for Just Peace
(via Bukidnon News with permission from VERA Files)

Leaders of indigenous communities in Bukidnon have refused to engage
in any discussion over the planned construction of the Pulangui V
Hydroelectric Project (HEP), until dam proponents submit a cultural
impact assessment that will detail the damage the dam will cause the
tribes.

The dam, which is expected to generate 300 megawatts into the Mindanao
grid, and 1,256 gigawatt hours of cheap renewable energy nationwide,
is touted to provide more than half the projected power shortage in
Mindanao by 2014. Since it is renewable energy, Pulangui V HEP will
generate very cheap power.

Last July, the project got the go signal from the Regional Development
Council of Region 10, which includes Bukidnon. Dam proponents,
however, were told to update their feasibility studies and secure
clearances from concerned government agencies such as the National
Commission on Indigenous Peoples and the Department of Natural
Resources.

Bukidnon, NorthMin organic rice country by 2013, says expert

SINAYAWAN, Valencia City (Bukidnon News Dispatch/28 Sept)— An organic
rice expert from the National Irrigation Administration predicted that
Bukidnon and the rest of Northern Mindanao’s rice lands will be organic
by 2013 with a program boosting the demonstration of organic rice
farming throughout the region.

Ildefonso Natingga Jr, NIA-10 organic rice demonstration officer, told
Bukidnon News recently that the feat is possible with the domino effect
starting from farmers who are taking part of the agency’s organic rice
demonstration project among irrigators’ associations in Northern
Mindanao.

He said they have developed half a hectare of rice farms in 95 sites
around the region as organic rice demonstration farms, which is
programmed up to 2013.