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Department of Agriculture – Caraga Field Operations Chief Rebecca Atega (at the center) together with the LGU Officials of Butuan City headed by Congressman Lawrence Fortun (at the center in white) led the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the turn-over activity of the P9.6 Million 1 km Purok 7 to Purok 4 Pigdaulan Farm-to-Market Road (FMR) to the Local Government Unit of Butuan City.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) turns over the P9.6 Million 1 Farm-to-Market Road (FMR) of Purok 7 to Purok 4 Pigdaulan Road Section to the Local Government Unit of Butuan City last January 17, 2019.

The concrete road from the Department’s Farm-to-Market Road Development Program (FMRDP) covers 423 hectares of the service area and would benefit 445 farmers in the locality.

DA’s regional validation team records that there are 327 hectares of rice, 50 hectares of coconut and 46 hectares of banana areas that the project will serve.

“Our barangay is vastly an agricultural area. Interventions like this encourages the residents here especially the farmers to be more productive” said Barangay Captain Dindo Hidalgo.

Hidalgo said that the farm areas of Pigdaulan before was less utilized and some areas were just filled with grass. “Residents have started to utilize their areas, they’re now planting different high-value crops since most of our roads are already concreted and it’s now easy to bring our products to the market,” Hidalgo added.

Field Operations Chief Rebecca Atega stressed that the Department has been finding ways on how to support the production of farmers and farmers’ associations. “We’re glad that Brgy. Pigdaulan together with LGU Butuan really worked out for the realization of this project. The Department can finance projects from those LGUs who submit proposals,” Atega said.

Butuan City is among the highly urbanized cities who desire that all of its road sections will be concreted. “It’s the LGU’s desire that in the near future, all of our farm roads will be concreted,” said Congressman Lawrence Fortun.

Republic Act 8435 or the Agriculture and Fisheries Act of 1997 mandates the DA to be on top of FMR projects. It leads the construction, restoration, and rehabilitation of infrastructures like irrigation systems, post-harvest facilities, and farm-to-market roads (FMR) in partnership with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and local government units (LGUs). (Fretcher Magatao, DA-Caraga)