Two farmers’ groups in Alangalang, Leyte have been listed for marketing and enterprise development assistance that will boost not only their production but promotion of their vegetable produce.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) regional office here said on Friday that officials from the regional office met with key officers and members of the Alangalang Agri-preneurs and Services Farmers Association and the Alangalang Agriventures Farmers Agricultural Cooperative for the orientation of the program.

The two groups will be enrolled as a vegetable cluster under the Farm and Fisheries Clustering and Consolidation (F2C2) program, DA regional technical director Larry Sultan, also the concurrent F2C2 regional focal, said in a phone interview Friday.

“The program is being introduced by the Department of Agriculture to farmer groups with the proximity of production areas, similarity of inputs, shared production or processes to promote better, coordinated and organized production and value chain systems,” Sultan added.

Since its launch in 2020, the DA regional office here has already included farmers in some parts of Leyte, Samar, Eastern Samar, and Southern Leyte provinces in this marketing assistance initiative.

The initiative teaches farmers the basic skills in recording and bookkeeping; introduces the real agro-enterprise concepts; credit facilities, including accreditation, profiling, and others.

“F2C2 aims to attain economies of scale which will enable our farmers and fisherfolk to earn more,” he added.

Through the F2C2 program, the national government will be able to efficiently channel assistance such as credit, modern production methods, farm machinery, post-harvest and program facilities, transport and logistics, packaging support, as well as information and communication technologies, to farm and fishery clusters.

Sultan said the program will focus on community production and processing projects to promote coordinated value chain systems, thus attaining cost-efficiency compared with stand-alone traditional farming and fishing practices.

To avail of projects offered under F2C2, the DA has set a minimum clustered area at 100 hectares for rice, fruit trees, perennials, and fiber crops; 75 hectares for corn and other grains; and 50 hectares for vegetables and high-value crops.

For livestock producers, they must have a feed mill within the production area, while small and large ruminants’ growers must have centrally managed grazing land and feed production systems.

Free-range chicken and other livestock raisers should have focused and well-delineated community growing territories.

In the case of fisheries and aquaculture, their cluster must have community-based production zones or processing facilities, or community fishpond leases.

Cluster production areas must either be contiguous or in close proximity within a village. Areas that are not contiguous should be located within a municipality or congressional district. (PNA)