Siquijor farmers train on dragon fruit processing

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Created on Friday, 07 October 2022

To provide value-added products to the dragon fruit production in the Province of Siquijor, the Department of Agriculture-Special Area for Agricultural Development (DA-SAAD) in Central Visayas recently trained some 40 farmers on dragon fruit processing.
Siquijor is one of the identified SAAD priority areas of Central Visayas.

These farmer-trainees were SAAD beneficiaries of the dragon fruit planting materials and farm inputs and are now members of the Dragon Fruit Pioneer Producers Association of Siquijor.

 

 

The two-days processing training, conducted in 2-batches, level up the farmer-recipients, not only on dragon fruit production, but also on value-adding to give them additional income.

Siquijor Representative Zaldy Villa, in his message, said such training is needed as this will greatly improve the income of the dragon fruit farmers. With value adding, farmers can save their produce from postharvest losses.

Villa said, dragon fruits are highly seasonal, that during its peak or harvest season, there are oversupplies of dragon fruits, hence, some remain unsold resulting to spoilage. Usually, a kilo of dragon fruit cost P 100.00-P 150.00, however prices drop to P 50.00 during peak season due to oversupplies. During this time, farmers lament for the very low prices of dragon fruits.

Among the processed by-products demonstrated were dragon fruit wine, juice and jam.

Dragon fruit farmer Eduardo Reno said that the training has equipped them with skills on how to process their produce.

“Daku kaayo og tabang ang maong training sa pagprocess sa among dragon fruits nga wala mahalin ug tungod sa training, dili na mausik. Nag-awhag sad ko sa akong mga kauban nga dragonfruit farmer nga magmadasigon kita para makab-ot nato atong damgo para sa atong kaugalingon ug para sa atong grupo”, said Reno.

(The training helped us a lot in the processing of our unsold dragon fruits not to go to waste. I also encourage my co-dragon fruit farmer to be more motivated for us to achieve our dreams and for our group).

Also present were Dr. Julius M. Galvan (DA7 APCO-Siquijor) and Atty. Dale Louis Tudtud (Chief of Staff of Governor Jake Vincent S. Villa).


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