Empowering communities in Siquijor thru S&T with over P6.0M worth of aid

MINERVA BC NEWMAN

SIQUIJOR ISLAND—The Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-Provincial Science and Technology Center (PSTC) in Siquijor has given more than P6.092M worth of financial and technical assistance to about 10 farmer, fisherfolk and women associations or communities in Siquijor Island for almost seven years now through DOST’s Community Empowerment thru Science and Technology (CEST) program.

“More than seven years empowering the communities like fisherfolks, farmers association, women’s organizations, they must be organized groups to become beneficiaries of these assistance,” DOST-PSTC Siquijor Provincial Director Engr. Mario de la Peña said.

De la Pena explained that CEST aims to build progressive, empowered, and resilient rural communities specifically, to empower the poorest and most depressed communities in the country through Science and Technology interventions.

 The CEST program priority sector being focused are health and nutrition, water and sanitation, basic education and literacy, livelihood/economic enterprise development, and disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

“We have assisted seven communities availing such program like beef tapa production, dairy milk production, chicken meat processing while the three other communities are focusing on peanut production,” De la Pena added.

In September this year, more than 100 farmers from the Liloan-Saguing Farmers and Fishers Association (LISAFFA) in Maria and Triple M Farmers Association in Lazi gathered, bore the heat of the sun with dirtied feet, took the initial steps to plough and prepare an area of 8.5208 hectares of land from 18 separate parcels for the planting of peanuts, De la Pena revealed.

According to de la Pena, DOST-PSTC Siquijor and Siquijor State College (SSC) continue to converge their efforts in the CEST implementation after they saw the success stories with the Bitaug Small Coconut Farmers Association (BISMACOFA) in Bitaug, Enrique Villanueva, Siquijor between 2020 and 2021.

De la Pena and SSC Extension Director Dr. Philna Palongpalong maintain a strategic plan to make peanuts the commodity to be sustainably abundant in the province of Siquijor in line with DOST 7’s vision of focusing on a single product for the development of a value chain.

“Peanuts because we have a lot of peanut processors in Siquijor and they are importing peanuts from other provinces.  We want to support the local processors by providing them locally produced peanuts in the province and we are promoting the PN5 and PN10 varieties which are edible for processing,” De la Pena shared.

Value chain comes in as famers produce peanuts and processors process the peanuts into different peanut products.  DOST also assists in the packaging and labelling and with laboratory analysis for the processed goods to conform with FDA requirements, he said.

De la Pena bared that just last two weeks ago in October 2022, both members of LISAFFA and Triple M completed planting peanuts in their respective areas and until around 110 days, the peanuts are ready for harvest.

So far, DOST have given these communities the necessary impetus to own their livelihood, increase income to improve their lives here, De la Pena shared that DOST has disbursed more than P900K to BISMACOFA; over P1.0M each for Maria farmers and Lazi Farmers; more than P672K for Kapanig, P550K for Wonder, and P700K for Catulayan; P570K for Cantugbas Women’s Association and in the pipeline over P700k for fisherfolks in Siquijor. (Photos: DOST-PSTC Siquijor)