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CATEEL, Davao Oriental– Local officials are optimistic of a stable rice supply for the province following the completion of a P289-million irrigation dam here.
Touted as one of Mindanao’s biggest, the dam will irrigate about 1,600 hectares of rice lands in this town, one of the hardest-hit when Typhoon Pablo (Bopha) ravaged Southern Mindanao in December 2012.
Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said in a speech at the dam’s inauguration the facility would initially help help farmers in 11 villages, by ensuring a constant water supply for their rice farms, thereby boosting the province’s palay production and rice sufficiency.
Started in November 2011 with funds from World Bank’s Mindanao Rural Development Project, construction of the dam in Barangay Aragon hit a snag when Cateel was ravaged by Typhoon Pablo, pushing back its completion.
The project could potentially irrigate up to 2,200 hectares.
Malanyaon said the WB-MRDP afforded the provincial government a financial breather, providing for most of the financing while the Department of Agriculture shouldered 80 percent of the 50 percent local government unit equity required by the program.
The dam would help boost the income of farmers as it would provide a stable yearlong supply of water to irrigate farmlands, resulting in good harvest, she said, adding it was Davao Oriental’s “road to rice self-sufficiency.”
Malanyaon said the dam would also provide an alternative to coconut farmers who lost their livelihood when the 2012 storm destroyed close to six million coconut trees in the province.
“We can keep the poor fed if we can correctly set our priorities. We can grow enough food and generate employment for them while maintaining our natural resources base and preserving diversity,” Malanyaon said. “Our action today will decide whether tomorrow is filled with famine or food security, poverty or prosperity. The stakes are simply too high.”
For farmer Amelito Bagumba, the irrigation project was the realization of an old dream of a stable and sustainable source of irrigation.
His 1.5-hectare rice field in the village of Alegria, some 7 kms from the dam, had been irrigated through a diesel-fired water pump, costing him at least P20,000 for fuel and hired labor every cropping season.
“The hard part was that the water source was unreliable so you had to pay for (pump) installation costs several times per cropping,” said the 46-year-old Bagumba.
Joseph Alonzo, president of the 44-strong Boguis Irrigators’ Association in Alegria, said the dam would irrigate about 100 hectares in his community throughout the year.
“We can now hope for an increased harvest every cropping,” he said, adding yield could go as high as 200 sacks per hectare.
Lealyn Ramos, MRDP director, said the Cateel irrigation project was its biggest in terms of “physical and financial aspects” even as she lauded local officials for their determination to finish the project.
Funded out of MRDP’s P498-million budget, the infrastructure was the last of the big-ticket projects of the 15-year Mindanao development program, officials said.
Malanyaon said the project would also help the municipalities of Cateel, Caraga and Baganga, the three towns hardest-hit by the 2012 storm, recover fully.
It would also help Cateel, site of more than 54 percent of Davao Oriental’s 23,000 hectares of rice land, complement other rice-producing towns of the province such as Lupon and Banaybanay.
Undersecretary Emerson Palad, Department of Agriculture chief for operations, said the government would provide other infrastructure assistance to Davao Oriental like bridges and farm-to-market roads to help boost farmers’ income by lessening marketing costs of their products.
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