LAOAG CITY — The local government of Piddig town in Ilocos Norte province is encouraging local residents to convert their trash into cash.
Engineer Eduardo Guillen, former Piddig mayor and current municipal consultant at the Office of Mayor Georgina Guillen, announced Tuesday that the Piddig government will buy PHP10 million worth of vermicast or organic fertilizer from local producers here.
As part of the town’s intensified implementation of the Solid Waste Management Act, Guillen has urged local residents to dump less biodegradable wastes and instead convert them into organic fertilizer.
Earlier, some of the townsfolk underwent training on vermicomposting technology, which turns biodegradable materials, such as farm and household wastes, into organic fertilizer.
In pushing for organic farming, Guillen has told the locals that the municipality is giving at least PHP4,000 worth of fertilizer subsidy for every hectare of rice farm.
In previous years, the municipal agriculture office collected dry rice straw from farmers for a fee.
The collected rice straws were later on converted into organic fertilizer through vermicomposting and given to the farmers’ cooperative free of charge.
“The project aims not just to help the farmers gain extra income but it is also a way of encouraging them to protect the environment,” said Guillen. (Leilanie Adriano/PNA)
