SP OKs MOA with DA for SCoPSA project

CAGAYAN de Oro City legislators headed by Vice Mayor Raineir Joaquin V. Uy continue to support projects that will boost the productivity of farmers in hinterland barangays.

During the regular session Monday, the City Council enacted an ordinance authorizing Mayor Oscar Moreno to enter into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Department of Agriculture covering the implementation of the Techno-Demo on Sustainable Corn Production in Sloping Areas (SCoPSA) project in Barangay Tagpangi.

It was learned that the DA is implementing the project to showcase the technology to farmers and to determine the cost and return of the technology to attain the priority concerns for the corn industry.

Based on the MOA, the component of the project includes the provision of material inputs and technical assistance. The labor inputs will be provided by the farmer beneficiaries.

Under the MOA, the DA shall provide bags of corn seeds, fertilizer, urea, vermicast, assorted fruit tree seedlings, coffee seedlings and cacao seedlings to the proponent farmer beneficiaries. The DA shall, likewise, supervise the project during land preparation and lay-outing, monitor the techno-farm for three years and provide technical assistance, among others.

For its part, the city government shall assign personnel to oversee the project, identify the proponent, provide technical assistance during the land preparation, among others.

Meanwhile, the farmer proponents shall provide two hectares of land for the project, provide labor counterpart in the establishment of the techno-demo project and provide hedgegrows planting materials.

The proponents shall have the income of the harvest but set aside a part of the income of the first cropping to be used for the succeeding cropping inputs and other expenses. The beneficiaries are also required to share the technology through farmer-to-farmer techno dissemination.

The MOA was endorsed by the committees on agriculture and fisheries and on laws and rules chaired by Councilors Annie Y. Daba, and Ian Mark Nacaya, respectively