CABANATUAN CITY – Acting National Irrigation Administration chief Engr. Eddie G. Guillen is pressing for the creation of farmers’ cooperatives out of agency-affiliated irrigators’ associations (IAs) to accelerate economic development in the agriculture sector.
Engr. Rosalinda B. Bote, department manager of the NIA-Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation System (UPRIIS), said that Guillen also asked them to conduct consultation with farmers and experts to determine the kind of hybrid rice seeds suited for their respective farms.
Guillen, a former mayor of Piddig town in Ilocos Norte, knew how farmers’ lives have dramatically improved through the formation of cooperatives in his hometown, Bote told the officers and members of the Nueva Ecija Press Club, Inc. in a forum at the Farmers Training Center here Monday.
Bote said that IAs which currently work hand-in-hand with their division officers in maintaining irrigation facilities among others will remain but will be clustered to form cooperatives.
The agency, she said, will assist the farmers along the way.
UPPRIIS has already coordinated with the Provincial Cooperative Entrepreneurship and Development Office of Nueva Ecija in pursuit of the program. They have also visited a successful farmers’ cooperative in San Antonio town.
“Ang sinasabi po ni administrator, ‘yun kasing personality ng isang kooperatiba ay hindi lang sa government entity siya pwedeng makipag-tie up…pwede rin sa private,” Bote said.
A cooperative, she noted, can conduct business, including marketing of its members’ produce.
