Agriculture and municipal consultant Engr. Eddie Guillen says that “the municipal agriculture office will collect the dry stalks from the farmers and will pay them for more or less Php 5,000.00 per farmer who manages the land.”
The bale of hays will undergo composting or grass-cycling to produce organic fertilizer and the finish product will be given back to the farmers’ cooperative for free.
“The project aims not just to help the farmers on their daily needs to include farming, but, encouraging them also to save the Mother Earth–not to burn rice straws,” said Mayor Gina Salazar Guillen.
In the year 2007, an ordinance banning the burning of rice straw was approved by the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Ilocos Norte. However, strict implementation in the entire province of Ilocos Norte must be unyielding.
(Bernard Ver, PBS/DWCI)
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