Juju M. Empuerto
CEBU CITY, June 18 (PIA) -- Over 6, 000
high-value coffee seedlings are planted in around 12.1 hectares in San
Pascual, Ubay Bohol under the national greening program (NGP).
DENR-7 regional executive director Dr.
Isabelo Montejo said the NGP was envisioned not just a reforestation program
but also to enhance food production.
“Coffee is one crop that we can be
self-sufficient by putting more government inputs to local coffee farming
through the national convergence initiative (NCI),” Montejo added.
According to Montejo the effort to
provide livelihood assistance to the upland communities is the key to the
success of the government’s NGP with the inclusion of coffee as a high-value
crop in keeping with the food security objective of the program.
DENR has earmarked some 86T
hectares for development into coffee plantation under the greening program
nationwide said DENR-7 Public Information Office head Dr. Eddie
Llamedo.
Llamedo added the department aims to
establish over 4, 000 hectares of coffee plantation in various identified NGP
sites in the four provinces of Central Visayas.
NGP is carried out not only for
regreening efforts but also stability and productivity of watersheds,
improved farm level productivity, improved household incomes and increased
production of food crops, timber and non-timber forest products according to
Llamedo.
NGP also seeks to plant 1.5B seedlings
in 1.5M hectares of public lands nationwide in six years, from 2011 to
2016.
This is more than twice the
government’s accomplishment for the past 25 years of about 730,000
hectares, bared Llamedo.
Areas for planting under the program
include forestlands, mangrove and protected areas, ancestral domains, civil and
military reservations, urban areas under the greening plan of local government
units, inactive and abandoned mine sites, and other suitable lands of the
public domain. (mbcn/jsme/PIA7-Cebu/with reports from DENR7)
- See more at: http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/1071434597873/over-6t-high-value-coffee-seedlings-planted-in-ubay-bohol-under-ngp#sthash.DqbCC65C.dpuf