W. Visayas is Phl’s top producer of watermelon

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — The Department of  Agriculture-Region 6 has confirmed that Western Visayas is now the top producer of watermelon in the Philippines, and is exporting the product to Taiwan and Japan.

Joyce Wendam, DA-6 regional technical director for planning research extension office, said Iloilo contributed a lot in the production since the towns of Oton, Zarraga and Leganes have vast watermelon plantations.

Wendam said that planting watermelon is already an all-season endeavor, unlike before when the fruit can only be planted during summer.  The DA has available seeds for farmers who are interested to plant watermelon, she added.

“Now, watermelon could be planted any type of season because of several techniques used by our farmers especially with the used of black plastic mulch,” Wendam told participants of the 24th National Convention of the Philippine Association of Research Managers, Inc. (PHILARM) at the Amigo Terrace Hotel in this city.

At least 150 Filipino research managers attended the PHILARM convention to set critical solutions on how to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change in the country.

PHILARM is a private, non-stock, non-profit professional organization engaged in the development, promotion and enhancement of the role of research managers in improving and sustaining productivity in research.

DA-6 director Larry Nacionales, for his part, expected that the participants had came up with studies on how to cope with climate change and reduce the damages of  natural disasters to people and agriculture.

“We believe that we could have lessen the extent of the damage brought about by typhoon Yolanda if we only had an intensive research and able to manage the resiliency of climate in our country,” said Nacionales.