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Manila Bulletin, Provincial
Bulletin, Tues., March 13, 2001 |
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Nueva Ecija gets
a shot at the world fruit market today
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By Magtanggol
C. Villar |
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CABANATUAN CITY - High-value fruit trees are the prized
plantings of the present, future, and prospective dollar
earners.
According to popular fruit-tree specialist
Bernie Dizon,
this city is an ideal place for fruit-tree planting. Instead
of converting vast idle agricultural lands into
subdivisions, turning them instead into fruit-tree groves
would be more profitable and, certainly, environment
friendly.
Citing that Cabanatuan City is the "hottest" city in
the country today, planting high-value fruit trees here
would surely serve as "coolant" to the dried-up atmosphere
brought about by the sudden commercialization of the city's
landscape. |
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Dizon said that rambutan is the more adaptable fruit
tree variety to plant and the most profit-guaranteed
for the farmers.
Other varieties of high-value fruit trees Dizon
cultivates are exotic pummelos,
lychees,
longkong,
Millennium mangos, lanzones,
durian.
Dizon's actual experimentation of these fruit tree
varieties have shown that although they are not
indigenous in Nueva Ecija, these exotic fruit trees
also grow and bear commercially in the area.
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| Nueva Ecija
pomelos give those coming from Davao stiff
competition |
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Hoe
boasts of his experimental plot at CLSU whose fruit trees
have been fruiting to the delight of domestic and foreign
visitors as well as prospective investors.
Dizon, however, laments the apparent lack of interest
of local officials in encouraging the all-out planting of
high-value fruit trees that farmers from China, Thailand,
Korea and Japan enjoy.
Unless a country-wide massive plantings of high-value
fruit trees is launched by the government, Dizon said the
country will never make it big in agriculture.
He said countries whose technicians have learned their
""A-B-Cs" from the CLSU and the University of the
Philippines in Los Baños several years back are now
dominating the fruit market exportations in Asia and
elsewhere in America and Europe.
Compared to commercial structures, fruit tree
plantations promise longer-lasting profit to the landowners.
He stressed that ecology-wise, fruit tree plantation
have far more beneficial effects for mankind.
Waxing poetic, Dizon belts: "I think that I shall
always plant a tree, whose shade and fruits will benefit me.
Steel structures rust and corrode, my trees will blossom and
nurture others after me."
Dizon who has helped plantation owners, including
former Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara, maintain a
research and laboratory for high-value fruit-tree
propagation and culture in Central Luzon State University in
Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.
Dizon has volunteered his valuable technical services
to the administration of Cabanatuan City Mayor Jay Vergara
who has shown interest in high-value fruit trees production. |
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