SAN MATEO, Isabela—This region’s topmost major rice-producing province has recently gained national prominence among the country’s local government units with its production of mungbean, dubbed here as "black gold."This is especially true in this formerly obscure town, whose administration has been recently recognized by the prestigious Galing Pook Award for initiating years of painstaking research in the development of the said leguminous crop, known as munggo or balatong in the vernacular, which is now a major protein source.
Last week, this town’s "black gold," now a leading summer crop here, has been instrumental in the town’s being bestowed the most-sought-after local government honor by no less that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in a ceremony in Malacañang.
Sponsored by Ford Foundation, Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), Local Government Academy and the Galing Pook Foundation, the Galing Pook Awards this year had 141 entries, with 19 landing as finalists.
Only 10, however, including the "The Black Gold of San Mateo (Isabela)" made it to the list of Top 10 Outstanding Local Governance Programs for 2007.
For this development feat, the municipality of San Mateo received a huge Galing Pook Award plaque and a P100,000 check from DBP.
According to San Mateo Mayor Roberto Agcaoli, his town did not find it difficult in participating in the Galing Pook competition since the agricultural technology for munggo production has been in place for six years.
"Candidly, we were not keen of any award. We were inspired to venture in munggo as an alternate crop to rice because we wanted to sustain farm production even during summer months when there is extreme scarcity of water," said Agcaoili. "Whether there was a competition or not, the practice was designed to arrest declining rice and corn production and to restore the fertility of the soil."
The Galing Pook Foundation cited the town for its excellent production of the drought-tolerant crop. Besides its value to health, another added benefit of this leguminous crop was that its root system also restores the fertility of the soil, being filled with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
During the plan’s inception, the San Mateo government ventured into a Plant-Now-Pay-Later scheme to intensify munggo production, enticing farmers to try the program which enabled farmers to avail of 20 kilos of munggo seeds and then pay for it after harvest.
From around 500 hectares, this province’s rice-producing town now has more than 7,000hectares of munggo farms during the dry season when rice planting took a respite due to water shortage.
Inspired by increasing profit from added production, more farmers here have also ventured into munggo production as an additional income source, earning the town the distinction as the region’s munggo granary.
Agcaoili said that while most of the country’s rice farms become dry and lifeless in summer or dry spells, those here stay even greener as local farmers convert them into a sea of munggo plantations.
Normally broadcast immediately after the rice harvest in March with the soil still relatively wet, munggo is grown shortly before the onset of summer. Municipal agriculture officer Emiliano Camba said the town produces an average of one ton per hectare of shelled munggo.
Camba said that farmers who used to be idle during summer need only about P1,000 worth of seeds to temporarily convert their one-hectare rice farm into a munggo plantation.
Since the town government encouraged its farmers to use their idle time to plant munggo six years ago, the town now has more than 7,000 hectares utilized for munggo farming during the dry period.
"We encouraged our farmers to consider alternate cropping of munggo to keep them from being idle during the summer months," Agcaoili said.
With 800 to 1000 kilos of munggo produced per hectare, and with a prevailing price of P40 a kilo, this results to an income of P40,000 per hectare. This translates to at least P250 million added income for the local farmers during summer, Camba said.
Besides its economic value, munggo, a kitchen favorite of both rich or poor, was found by experts to be a nutritious source of protein, calcium and iron. CCL
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