BUTUAN CITY- One of the battle cries of farmers today is how to increase yield and ensure a higher market for their produce. However, most of them are still into mono-crop farming. If the market fails for the lone crop they produce, then income is severely affected.

Addressing this situation, the Agricultural Training Institute – Regional Training Center 13 conducted a Training on Corn-based Farming System to 30 farmers from barangays Dulag, Bitan-agan, Florida, Sumilihon, and Mandamo all of Butuan City.

The pool of experts who served as Resource Persons include Ms. Erlinda E. Plaza and Mr. Eric B. Ancheta both from Butuan City Agriculture Office, Mr. Jeffrey Naive of the Provincial Agriculture Office – Agusan del Norte, Organic Practitioner/Consultant Mr. Oscar Tuyor, ATI’s Neptali V. Madarimot and Matt Janfour Cabahug. They taught the farmers to engage into farm diversification and integration with aqua, poultry, livestock and vegetables having corn as the main crop. Farmers were also imparted on the management practices for corn and vegetable production and introduced on the prospects of farming as a business.

To intensify the learning process, the farmers were toured at ATI’s Learning Site for Agriculture where they observed the different project components which are products of matured technologies and appropriate farming practices.

The farmers vowed to gradually apply what they learned from the training as reflected in their action plans which shall be evaluated six month after the training.
The training was conducted last March 10-12, 2020 at VCDU Grand Convention, Villa Kananga, Butuan City. (with report from Matt Janfour)