Speaking before more than 40 participants in a seminar on yacon-cultivation, the PNP chief believed that the yacon project launched by the Police Regional Office-Cordillera Administrative Region (PRO-COR) to stop the growing of the prohibited plant is in line with the government’s program aimed at providing livelihood to people in the rural areas.

The yacon-cultivation is also aimed at curbing the century-old marijuana production in the various parts of Cordillera.

Marijuana cultivation has become the main source of livelihood of many residents of farflung barangays of Benguet, Mountain Province, and Kalinga.

Lumibao lauded Kapangan officials for spearheading the yacon project as well as the cultivation of anthorium, noting that they took the initiative to provide alternative sources of livelihood for their constituents.

Yacon is a tasty, potato-like root crop with medicinal properties that could lower the blood sugar level of people with diabetes and could improve digestion.

The farmers who participated in the yacon-cultivation seminar came form areas where there were marijuana plantations that were destroyed by government operatives.

Chief Supt. Leonardo Dionisio, PRO-COR director, was about to sign an agreement on yacon juice and tea processing or manufacturing with concerned government agencies.

The project aims to determine the most appropriate method of processing and manufacturing yacon tea and yacon juice with no additives, two health products that are popular in Japan and other countries because of their fructooligoseccherides, which increases probiotic bacteria in the intestines and polyphenol, which has an anti-oxidant effect.

Dionisio said the yacon juice and tea-processing or manufacturing can contribute to the eradication, of the marijuana menace in the Cordillera.

PRO COR will implement its Oplan Yacon, which is geared at promoting and enhancing yacon propagation as the main source of livelihood of farmers who used to be engaged in marijuana cultivation.

One of the strategies embodied in the medium-term, anti-illegal drug master plan of the PNP calls the eradication of marijuana plantations through the introduction of alternative crops to serve as the source of livelihood of marijuana cultivators.