Rains – blessing during the planting season turned curse at harvest time – have always fallen heavily on the farmers’ lot, more so lately.
With the price of palay (unhusked rice) already at low-time low – the Rice Tariffication Law be damned, farmers cry – wet palay’s price further nosedives near to nothingness.
Walking his talk that the welfare of the farmers is close to his heart, notwithstanding the capital city being highly urbanized, Mayor Edwin “EdSa” Santiago caused the installation, initially in Barangay Maimpis, of a mobile grain dryer last Tuesday.
This makes drying palay grains faster and more efficient with lesser wastage than the usual practice of “bilaran” or spreading the grains on road pavements to dry under the sun. Which is also a cause of inconvenience and hazard to motorists.
The mobile grain dryer was made possible through the efforts of the city agriculture and veterinary office pursuant to the Santiago administration’s commitment to support Fernandino farmers to achieve sustainable agriculture and increase food security. With CSFP-CIO
