News about the Helping Hand Project

16. Oktober 2003

Dear Mng. Pilar and Alfred and everybody,

With regards with our project, I am happy to inform you that the farmers have already finish the nursery and ready for seedling production. Through my brother BEN I instructed the farmers to prepare the soil and rice hulls to be use for potting. On the other hand the seeds that I brought to Lias last year have already loss its viability so It could not germinate.

The next harvest season for the coffee arabica will be on December and thats the time that I plan to buy new seeds and bring it to Lias for the nursery and they will be planting the seedlings during the rainy season next year. With the remaing budget of our project I plan to buy one grass cutter and coffee arabica seeds this coming December and bring it to Lias. I will also buy 1,000 coffee arabica planting materials on March or April and bring it to Lias for planting by other farmers who were not given last year with the 1,500 coffee seedlings. (So instead of buying 2 grass cutters, I will only buy one and instead buy 1,000 plantable coffee arabica seedlings) This is only my suggestion so that farmers who were not given last year with the 1,500 coffee seedlings that were distruted will also be given, pls. give also your suggestion regarding this matter.

Most of the farmers are also interested to plant citrus seedlings particularly the mandarin ponkans and meyer lemons besides coffee arabica. since they have realized that Citrus is a good source of additional income with the success of the Techno-demonstration project of the former RP-German Fruit Tree Project that ended 1997 and the Department of Agriculture. So I suggest that to encourage the farmers to plant more coffee arabica, we will also include citrus seedlings to be integrated with coffee arabica production in their farms. When I go home on December then I will conduct meeting to determine how many mandarin ponkans and meyer lemon seedlings do the farmers need then I will inform you.

How I wish to tell more stories but may I shorten my story since my brother Fernando who is in Baguio is coming in our house tonight, so I need to be there. He is unfortunately suffering from a malignant cancer and he is now undergoing Chemoteraphy at SLU for 6 months and he just finish first month treatment. Kindly pray for him for his fast recovery and miraculous healing.

Thank you very much and kindly extend my best regards to your children and the Haranang Pilipino Family.
So long....
Sincerly yours
Pedro