The municipality of Dinalupihan has started adopting precision farming to boost agricultural production and improve livelihood of local farmers.
Mayor Gila Garcia said the provincial government of Bataan, municipality of Dinalupihan, and Agrilever HK Ltd. from Israel signed an agreement under the public private
partnership scheme to introduce modern technology and precision farming in producing high quality and good yields of crops in the province.
The 1Bataan Agriculture Innovation and Technology Center (1Bataan AITC) was established through the joint venture aiming to plant at least 100 hectares of clustered farms within the municipality for the next dry season from October 2021 to March 2022.
The lady mayor on Tuesday toured local newsmen to three of the ten pilot farms in the municipality planted with crops chilli, tomato, eggplant, squash, and watermelon installed with drip fertigation system and other precision farming techniques.
Agriliver Israel chief operating officer Aaron Samuel explained to newsmen how the installed drip fertigation system works in a pilot farm planted with chilli and eggplant in Barangay Dalao.
The lady mayor also showed the pilot harvested watermelon farm and squash farm in Barangay Daang Bago.
“The watermelon yields are good quality and even earlier than 60 days with the adopted precision farming”, said Garcia.
“In dry season, we will plant high-value crops and adopt modern farming technique. With the ongoing piloted ten farms, we will have information what crops are best to prioritize for better yields and earning”, said the lady mayor.
“We want to produce high yields in line with the thrust of the national government of food sustainability. We want to produce yields of commercial quantity to improve the living of our local farmers”, she said.
Garcia hatched the vision to make Dinalupihan a model agropolis in Central Luzon by 2022.
