Mungbean a good alternative to rice

SAN MATEO, Isabela – This region’s top-most major rice-producing town enhanced its recently prized-mungbean project to supplement its stocks of rice, whose production has been on the downtrend, fearing of a shortage of supply of the Filipino’s major staple crop until 2010. 

“This mungbean project was designed to arrest declining rice and corn production and to restore the fertility of the soil in time for the rice planting season again,” said Mayor Roberto Agcaoili of this town, which is now considered to be North Luzon’s munggo granary.

From around 500 hectares five years ago, this town now has more than 7,000 hectares of munggo farms, especially at this particular time of the year when rice planting takes a respite due to shortage of water, enabling hundreds of farmers to venture into it rather than their usual idleness waiting for the rainy season. 

Inspired by increasing profit, Agcaoili said that more farmers here are now venturing into munggo production, which has become the leading summer crop here, not only as an additional income source but also to supplement their rice production. 

Dubbed here as “Black Gold” because of its promising profit to farmers, munggo or balatong in the local dialect is normally broadcast immediately after the rice harvest or before the onset of summer when the farmlands are still wet. 

“We encouraged our farmers to consider alternate cropping of munggo to keep them from being idle during the summer months when they could not plant rice because of scarcity of water supply,” said municipal agriculture officer Emiliano Camba. 

With 800 to 1000 kilos of shelled munggo produced per hectare, and with a prevailing price of P45 a kilo, this results to an income of P45,000 per hectare. This translates to at least P300 million added income for the local farmers during summer for the more than 7,000 hectares of lands planted with munggo, Camba said.  

Besides its economic value, munggo, a kitchen favorite for both rich and poor, was found by experts to be a nutritious source of protein, calcium and iron. 

During the inception period, the town leadership ventured into a plant-now-pay-later scheme to intensify munggo production, enticing farmers to try the program, which enabled them to avail of 20 kilos of munggo seeds. And this started it all.

In February, this formerly obscure town was recognized by the Ford Foundation-Local Government Academy-sponsored Galing Pook Award for years of painstaking research in the development of the said leguminous crop. No less than President Arroyo bestowed the most-sought-after award among local government units on the San Mateo municipal government during the recognition rites held in Malacañang on Feb. 28.