By Annabel Consuelo Petinglay/PNA
SAN JOSE DE BUENAVISTA, Antique — Farmers from the seven towns of Antique province are recipients of 7,245 bags of certified seeds under the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) high-yield production program.
Senior agriculturist of the Provincial Agriculture Office, Ramona de la Vega, said in an interview Thursday that the initial bags of certified seeds were delivered by DA personnel directly to the farmer’s associations in the seven towns so that farmers would have planting material for their second cropping.
Certified seed is high in generic purity, high in germination and vigor, and of good quality.
“The farmers’ associations are the ones in charge of distributing the seeds to their farmer members,” she said.
The association also decides whether the farmer beneficiary will have to repay the bag of seeds.
One farmer-member of the association is given one bag of certified seeds.
The towns that received the seeds are Barbaza with 542 bags, Bugasong with 1,076 bags, Culasi with 756 bags, San Jose de Buenavista with 592 bags, Sebaste with 33 bags, Sibalom with 1,998 bags, and Patnongon with 2,248 bags.
De la Vega said that Patnongon received 2,248 bags of certified seeds because the delivery for the town’s farmers included rice planting material for the first and second cropping.
“DA is actually going to distribute the certified seeds to all 18 towns of the province for the second cropping,” she said, adding that the department is expected to deliver the seeds to the other towns in the coming days.
De la Vega noted that the DA has also delivered 14,067 bags of certified seeds just before the start of the first cropping period in June to July to 14 towns in the province.
