Farmers can slash down their expenses by half during
land preparation through farm mechanization.
This was proven true by farmers in Trento, Agusan del
Sur who were beneficiaries of the Bottom-up Budgeting (BUB) pre and post
harvest facilities.
In 2014, six farmer associations in Trento, Agusan del
Sur became recipient of BUB’s pre and post harvest facilities such as thresher
and floating tiller implemented by the Department of Agriculture and the local
government unit of Trento.
“Before the farm implements from BUB arrived, I use to
hire privately owned floating tiller including labor for a fee of P850.00. But
with BUBs intervention, we only need to pay P444.00,” says Bernado Paña, a
farmer and a member of TIBARAO Irrigators Association.
Meanwhile Ronnie Fancobila, chairperson of the TREKA
Irrigators Association said that BUB’s pre and post harvest facilities is an
answer to their needs.
“Considering the 120 members in our association, the
existing farm machines in our community is not enough to accommodate the demand
during land preparation but with additional unit from BUB it helps a lot,”
Fancobila said.
Meanwhile, Trento Municipal Agriculture Office conducts
regular monitoring to ensure the sustainability of BUB projects.
“We have regular monitoring with our agricultural
extension workers to check the status of the equipment, I even require the
associations to submit the lists of farmers being served by the equipment,”
Municipal Agriculturist Norma dela Cruz said.
Seeing the potential of improving the lives of the
farmers, farm mechanization is being pushed by the Department of Agriculture
through its regular and special programs such as the Bottom-up Budgeting (BUB).
BUB is one of the major reform initiatives of the
Aquino administration and has been seen as a component of its budget reform
thrusts that are aimed at making the national government budgeting process more
responsive to local needs. (Aurelius P. Arais/DA Caraga)
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