Rubber Farmers Receive 1,210 Rubberized Coagulating Tubs

Rubber farmers of Ipil, this province had received rubberized latex coagulating containers from Local Government through the Office of the Municipal Agriculture, July 20, as part of the 67th Araw of Ipil celebration.

The activity which was conducted in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) had distributed at least 1,210 rubberized latex coagulating containers to selected rubber farmers in Ipil.

The recipients, according to Municipal Agriculturist Edgar Apao, was identified by DTI from a masterlist of rubber farmers listed last 2014. These farmers are from the 21 barangays of Ipil town namely Buluan, Bacalan, Caparan, Domandan, Doña Josefa, Guitoan, Labe, Logan, Lumbia, Maasin, Magdaup, Lower Pangi, Makilas, Taway, Suclema, Timalang, Tenan, Tiayon, Tomitom, Upper Pangi and Veterans Village, all of which are identified as having rubber plantations.

“The purpose of the distributed containers is to aid rubber farmers in producing clean rubber lumps as an answer to an allegation that went out from previous years that raw rubber supplies from Sibugay are dirty,” Apao said.

The delivery of the said containers took quite long since DTI had to make 3 scheduled deliveries to Ipil and was only completed just recently, Apao added when asked if it is coincidental that their distribution fell on Araw ng Ipil celebration.

Each container could store around an estimated 40 kilos of rubber lump and each recipient was given 1 container per two hectares as identified in DTI’s list.

“This container can help me produce clean rubber lump from my farm since my existing containers needs to be replaced.” Francisco Enriquez, 65, a resident of Barangay Maasin said in an interview.

Enriquez, who has been a rubber farmer since 1985 and who has an area of two hectares, is tapping from rubber tree varieties that only produce an average of 15-20 kilos per hectare every 15 days and the current market of raw rubber in Ipil is in 20-25 per kilo.

“Lugi jud, pero okay na lang kaysa wala jud,” Enriquez lamented.

In aid to this problem, Apao said that the office of the agriculturist has been implementing the hauling cost subsidy program which gives each recipient farmer a subsidy of two pesos per kilo in cash and has been offering new varieties of rubber trees to replace the old ones.

Existing programs are implemented under the office of agriculture and many other aids are on its way for Ipil farmers as the new administration eyes improvement in the agricultural sector.

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