Cebu City celebrates abundant summer harvest

SELFIE. Students take a photo of themselves with the flower float of barangay Malubog, winner of the float competition City Hill’s Agri Bonanza.

The hot weather and the threat of El Niño have so far not affected Cebu City’s upland farmers who are celebrating their first ever “Agri-Bonanza Week.”

It’s a fun week for farmers as the city government lined up activities for the farmers, including yesterday morning’s flower float parade from the Fuente Osmeña Circle to the Plaza Sugbo grounds fronting the City Hall.

“We decided to integrate all the activities into one week so as to encourage more barangays and farmers’ associations to join the event. It’s a week for the farmers,” said City Agriculturist Joselito Baclayon.

The summer heat has not made adverse impacts, so far, on farmers’ produce, said Baclayon.
“Actually, we have no problem so far. You can see that the farmers have a lot of display of produces and flowers,” he said.

Baclayon said the flowers and leafy vegetables are the ones mostly affected by hot weather condition. He said farmers are thankful for the recent rains in the city which also helped mitigate the impacts of the hot weather.

Since January, the City Agriculture Department has been campaigning for mitigating measures to combat the coming El Niño.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) has adjusted its El Niño forecast to July, instead of June based on temperature changes in the east Pacific Ocean. Full impact of El Niño may be felt in the last quarter of the year and early parts of 2015.

The city government set aside more than P5 million for procurement of equipment and seeds to assist farmers who might be affected by the dry spell.

Flower float

Barangay Malubog’s float edged out eight others with its huge figure of a carabao covered with gray, blue, yellow and white flowers on top of a multicab adorned with colorful flowers and plants.

Malubog was declared winner of the float parade competition with a cash prize of P30,000. They were followed by barangay Sirao at second place with P25,000 and barangay Budlaan at third place with P20,000.

The other contingents got P10,000 as consolation prize.

With this, Baclayon said, there will be no more individual flower festival later this year.

A dance competition similar to Sinulog festival was also held yesterday afternoon wherein barangay Malubog won first place followed by Bulacao and the Pamutan-Soong-Sapangdaku Farmers Association.

Cash prize of P25,000, P20,000 and P15,000 will be given to the winners of the group dance competition this Friday, the closing ceremony for the celebration. Consolation prizes of P10,000 will also be given to the non-winning contestants.

A booth display competition among different barangays and their products will be held today. Horse racing, carabao relay and pig catching games will be held at the San Pedro Calungsod templete tomorrow.

By Thursday, there will be a cooking contest and farmer’s testimony – a contest of the best practices and farming technologies employed by different farmers in the city’s 31 upland barangays.

The booths and displays at the Plaza Sugbo are open this week.