PCA pushes intercropping program to augment coconut farmers’ income

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) on Saturday said it has allocated some P107.94 million for an intercropping corn program in coconut plantations across the country to improve farmers’ income. PCA Administrator Oscar Garin said program aims to revitalize new or idle coconut farms and increase the incomes of coconut farmers, on top of producing and making available more food to low-income families. Garin said the government has also allocated P786 million for the Coconut Industry Investment Fund Safety-Net Program or CSNP and another P86 million for the upgraded insurance program benefiting 1.02 million coconut farmers. Intercropping, which makes use of short gestation intercrops or “cash crops" like corn, encourages farmers to plow idle coconut farms to supplement their incomes and, at the same time, enhance soil fertility that enable coconut trees to tap more nutrients and improve their fruit-bearing capacity, Garin said. Under the program, the PCA has identified several provinces with marginalized coconut farms that are suitable for growing corn as a major intercrop for food and income generation and the rural poverty alleviation strategy of the coconut agribusiness development program of the coconut agency. Last year, over 100,000 farmers benefited from a P100-million corn intercropping program of the Department of Agriculture in Bicol and other parts of Luzon to help the coconut sector recover from the devastation it suffered from the spate of “super" typhoons that hit the country in the second semester of 2006. This year, the PCA is carrying out three short- to long-term initiatives that will involve the massive fertilization, intercropping and planting of coconut to sustain the growth of the industry as top Philippine export. The coconut sector is projected to recover in 2008 from a negative growth of 5.12% last year, with its expansion expected at 5.57%, as against the original forecast of only 1.42%. For the first quarter of the year, Garin said the coconut sector grew 5.1%, with its gross earnings increasing 24% to P16.13 billion from P13 billion in 2007. - BMANews.TV