SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union — As 2010 hits the farming calendar, La Union Provincial Agriculturist Avelino A. Lomboy intensified a province-wide vegetable and root-crop production programs to help farmers earn more income for buying their daily needs.

Lomboy, who made the innovative landscape in local agriculture when he assumed the agriculture top post on 2007, disclosed that vegetable production could be one of the lucrative income sources of the farming communities considering that harvesting time is very much shorter as compared to palay, corn, and other regular preferences of farmers.

He said that rural and urban vegetable production is on top of his priorities this year without prejudice to other regular programs which deserve equal attention.

“I have already instructed our technical staff, particularly those in the High Value Commercial Crops (HVCC) Banner Program to raise public awareness on vegetable production,” he said.

“Together with the Department of Agriculture (DA) and other stakeholders of the provincial government headed by Gov. Manuel C. Ortega, the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist (OPAG) is currently conducting mass-based technical briefings and lectures on this undertaking and we hope to achieve more agricultural yield in the first quarter of 2010 and beyond,” he added.

According to Lomboy, high-breed vegetable seeds have already been distributed in order to generate a truly viable partnership mechanism towards this program.