Agriculture Ministry Looking for Homegrown Solution for Farmers

Jose Abelardo Mai

With the cost of fertilizers going up, micro, small and medium scale farmers will have to seek a different route.  The Ministry of Agriculture is hitting the ground running, attempting to mitigate the issue facing farmers. Minister Jose Abelardo Mai says that his team is turning to possible homegrown solutions.

Jose Abelardo Mai, Minister of Agriculture, Food Security & Enterprise

“I have tasked an agronomist and her team to look to fast track, to develop bio-fertilizers. That’s why I asked the technician here about feces. Feces have now become fertilizer, it is not feces – it has value. Chicken feces, cattle, pigs – we have to look at what we have in the country and develop bio-fertilizers so that we can teach the farmers how to use their own products. Guatemala is going in the same direction, D.R. is in the same and we are right on it. We have the formula for it. We’ve been doing it small scale and now we have to expand on it and spread it to the other districts, especially for the small farmers who do vegetables, onions, potatoes and so on because you will not be able to afford the fertilizers. In the case of the cane farmers who own sixty thousand acres of sugar cane, what can be done? Bagasse and again it sounds easy, but there are logistical costs – transporting bagasse, spreading it on the field may be the same as buying the fertilizer. So we have to look at intelligent ways of working so that instead of burdening the farm, we help the farmer.”