POPULAR for the enormous production of munggo beans, or munggo, San Mateo town in Isabela is geared toward becoming the first agro-ecological city up north.
In 2007 the town
bagged the most-coveted Gawad Galing Pook Award. In its report, the
Galing Pook Foundation discovered that locally called balatong, munggo,
is a drought-tolerant crop. The root system of this leguminous crop also
restores the fertility of the soil, as it is filled with
nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
The Gawad Galing Pook
Award is given by the Galing Pook Foundation, in partnership with the
Ford Foundation, United Nations Development Program, Unicef and the
Local Government Academy.
The San Mateo local
government devised a plant-now, pay-later scheme to intensify munggo
production and entice farmers to try the program. Through this system,
farmers could avail themselves of 20 kilos of munggo-seed stocks per
hectare and only pay for them after harvest.
The town has more than 7,000 hectares of farms planted to mung beans during the dry season.
A production of 800 to
1,000 kilos of munggo per hectare at the prevailing price of P32 per
kilo translates to incomes ranging from P25,600 to P32,000 per hectare.
This means a P224-million additional income for local farmers during
summer.
San Mateo began
celebrating the Balatong Festival, which included site visits of munggo
demonstration farms, seminars and a farmers’ forum on the various
aspects of munggo production and marketing.
Other municipalities in Isabela, like Cabatuan, Roxas, San Manuel, Luna and Aurora, are now replicating this program.
Declared as the
“Mungbean Capital of the Philippines,” the cleanest and greenest town in
the Cagayan Valley region is a cutflower, banana and watermelon basket
in the making.
In his last term of
office as the town’s chief executive in 2010, former San Mateo Mayor
Roberto Agcaoili, who was re-elected municipal vice mayor with his wife
Mayor Crispina Agcaoili, has transformed the 33-barangay municipality
from third class during his first term to its present first-class
status.
“The honors and awards
we have captured demonstrate our brand of leadership, dedication and
commitment to our mandated mission,” Vice Mayor Agcaoili said.
The three-term mayor,
who himself bested 35 other municipal chief executives to become
Isabela’s most outstanding mayor, said his municipality found no
difficulty participating in the Galing Pook competition because the
agricultural technology on munggo production has been practiced in his
town one year after he took over as mayor in 2001.
Agcaoili has been
cited by the League of Municipalities of the Philippines for bagging two
Punong Bayan Awards of Excellence gold medals for his town’s winning a
Galing Pook award and the Presidential Lingkod Bayan award he got, the
highest award given by the Civil Service Commission to a public servant.
In 2008 barangays Old
Centro and San Marcos received in Malacañang a total of P1.5 million for
winning the nationwide search for the best implementation of Ecological
Solid Waste Management Act, or Republic Act 9003, in their respective
categories.
The town also landed
twice as Presidential Most Child-Friendly Municipality in the country
and bagged the Best Disaster Coordinating Council in the Cagayan Valley
region.
“We are the only
municipality in the province which joined the Guinness World Record feat
through the continuous promotion of exclusive breast-feeding activity,
where 80 mothers participated from our municipality,” said Agcaoili, who
is a doctor of medicine by profession.
The San Mateo
Municipal Registrar’s Office was adjudged most outstanding from the
three levels of government: provincial, regional and national.
Municipal Treasurer
Marygine Salvador and Municipal Assessor Antonio Bartolome both received
Hall-of-Fame awards as top grosser in the collection of real-property
taxes in the provincial level.
The town’s Rural
Improvement Club has been cited national winner during the term of the
late President Corazon Aquino and during President Benigno Aquino III’s
term.
Home to winners of the
Ten Most Outstanding Farmers in the Country, the municipality brought
home for two consecutive years (2012 and 2013) the prestigious
Agri-Pinoy Rice Achievers Award.
After achieving and
becoming a first-class municipality, the town has been launched as an
agro-ecological destination in the Cagayan Valley region.
“Resting upon this
goal is our hope of promoting our countless agricultural products and
services, hand in hand with existing national and international research
facilities being hosted by our municipality, like the Bureau of
Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, PhilRice and the Bureau of Plant
Industry,” said the lady mayor.
Like the Science City
of Muñoz in Nueva Ecija, re-elected Isabela Gov. Faustino “Bojie” Dy III
eyes San Mateo to become the first agro-ecological city in the country
soon.
source:http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/en/news/regions/16004-more-than-munggo-isabela-s-san-mateo-is-an-agro-ecological-city-in-the-making
