Saturday, February 18, 2012

News Update City Hall seeks P20M aid to improve farm-to-market roads in 2 villages

TO FACILITATE the smooth movement of goods, the Cebu City Government is seeking P20-million assistance from the Department of Agriculture (DA) to improve farm-to-market roads in the mountain barangays.
Mayor Michael Rama recently wrote Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala, asking for a P10-million allocation for the farm-to-market road in Barangay Babag and another P10 million for the one in Barangay Agsungot.
Both projects will serve as support infrastructure in the agricultural development of the city’s mountain villages.
Cebu City’s plan
“This is very essential to the community inasmuch as most of the residents thereat are engaged in farming and that they will be traveling to the city proper more often in order to transport their products for trade,” the mayor said in his letter.
The projects are in line with the City’s plan to improve the city’s road network and speed up the transport of agricultural products to the market centers from production areas.
Once approved, the farm-to-market road assistance from DA will be over and above the P100-million budget that the City allocated under the P5.2-billion annual budget this year for road concreting in the mountain barangays.
The amount will cover the concreting of the mountain barangays’ main roads and secondary roads.
Asked why only Babag and Agsungot, Philip Zafra, the mayor’s chief of staff, said Rama said they have decided to prioritize the two barangays.
Improvement of the farm-to-market road in other villages will follow, he said.
The City sought the DA’s help after learning that the agency will build and rehabilitate P5 billion worth of farm-to-market roads in the whole country this year.
The DA had said that poor road networks are blamed for low productivity and weak growth of the agricultural sector and poor income opportunities