SIMPLY BUSINESS

THE TOWN OF A HUNDRED (MINI) LAKES

Bingawan is now known as the town of a hundred lakes, albeit,  small.  Through the efforts of its mayors,  the late Zafiro Palabrica and later his son Matt,  the town was recipient to government's Small Farm Reservoir project of the Department of Agriculture. The project builds farm reservoirs usually in the higher parts of the farm.  Mayor Zafiro embraced the project because of the terrain of the municipality where it was impossible to build an irrigation system to benefit the most number of farmers.  His son Mayor Matt appreciated his father's initial effort and sought to ask for more units from the Department of Agriculture so to date,  the town has 100 SFRs spread all over. The municipality is now known as the recipient of the most number of SFRs nationwide.

With SFRs, each isolated group of farms can be served by impounded water located higher than the farms. Water flows down by gravity.
The SFRs serves as rain water harvesters where runoff from the hills are channelled to the dammed area and stored. These are also seeded with tilapia, sea bass
 (acclimatized to fresh water) and other food  species.  Inevitably,  indigenous species like hito,  snake head (Dalag) also populate. Even the naturalized Gambezi or mosquito fish are seen in many of the ponds,  a healthy sign of a balanced aqua ecosystem.

The SFRs have improved the productivity of the farm clusters.  Rice growing season  is extended and with sufficient water, higher yields were achieved. The remaining water after the rice season was used to grow vegetables.  Using integrated farming,  the large dikes  were also utilized because of readily available water.  All these improved productivity was supervised by the municipality's agriculture office.

The end result of the municipality's intervention through the installation of SFRs is increased productivity per farmer and his family. Not only that the farmers had better rice yields,  they also have diverse sources of income,  from rice to vegetables  to fish to poultry and small scale pig raising. Improved nutrition also came in because vegetables and fish are available without added cost to the families.

Mayor Matt has been replaced by his younger brother and he is now Provincial Board Member. Mayor Mark is now pursuing the success left by his brother and his father by further increasing the productivity of the SFRs. He is now mulling new projects related to SFRs as well as those taking off from them. With the interest of the people in SFRs, he foresees that they can draw in both local and foreign tourists.  This means more effort to produce more so that there is surplus for sale to outsiders. There is also the potential for leisure and recreation,
which is now a huge industry world wide.

All these productivity started with just a project to store water for the dry season  which is often harsh and unforgiving to small farmers in the town of Bingawan,  now known as the Town of a Hundred (mini) Lakes.