1,000 new abaca plantations set to go up nationwide

Areas in Bicol, the Visayas, the Davao region, Caraga and Mimaropa will be opened up for as many as 1,000 new abaca plantations to meet the growing local and global demand for the crop, said the Fiber Industry Development Authority. FIDA will also rehabilitate 600 hectares of old and unproductive, disease- and typhoon-damaged fibercrop areas in Bicol and western and eastern Visayas by providing technical assistance in the expansion, opening or rehabilitation of fiber farms, said administrator Cecilia Gloria Soriano in a statement over the weekend. FIDA operates experiment stations, seed banks, tissue culture laboratories, an immunology laboratory and diagnostic laboratories nationwide, and collaborates with local governments and farmers' groups in abaca-producing areas to establish abaca nurseries, said Soriano. She added that the agency's abaca disease management project, which covered nine municipalities last year, will be expanded to cover 15 municipalities aim to reduce the percentage of disease incidence in 5,000 hectares of abaca farms this year. — BM, GMA News