Provincial Agriculture Office eyes P430-million budget for 2018

Cebu Provincial Agriculturist Dr. Roldan Saragena (CDN PHOTO/MOREXETTE ERRAM)

The Provincial Agriculture Office in Cebu has proposed a P430-million budget for year 2018/

In a press conference at the Capitol compound on Friday afternoon, Provincial Agriculturist Dr. Roldan Saragena revealed that they are eyeing a P430-millon budget to fund both their regular projects and farm mechanization.

Regular projects include usual agricultural programs such as production of cacao, banana and coffee crops. Farm mechanization refers to the machinery like tractors and millers to aid farmers.

“250 million goes to farm mechanization while 180 million will go to our regular projects,” Saragena said.

However, the budget is still pending for approval and modifications from the Provincial Budget Office before it will be raised to the Provincial Board (PB) for more deliberation and approval. The PB will then forward the proposal to Cebu governor Hilario Davide III for the final decision.

“This is still subject to changes from our budget officer (Danilo Rodas),” added Saragena.

For 2017, the Provincial Agricultural Office received an allocation of P109 million.

The provincial agriculturist said they are planning to hire sea wardens to guard municipal waters from commercial fishing boats as means to protect local, small-scale fishermen in defense to the proposed 400 percent budget increase.

“The project that added up our budget was devoted for our fishing sector. We want to have fishing wardens to monitor and secure the 15-kilometer radius of our municipal waters from commercial fishermen,” Saragena said.

“We’re doing this to ensure food and livelihood of our small-time fishermen. We’re eyeing to start the trainings of these sea wardens with towns in the north,” he added.