Kalinga continues to shine in DA’s Young Farmers Challenge; received P2.5M grant from 2021-2023

Tabuk City, Kalinga – Kalinga is one of the provinces in the region that continues to take the lead in the Young Farmers Challenge Program of the Department of Agriculture.

In the program’s three years of implementation in the region, Kalinga has already produced 30 business model canvases that have been recognized across all competition levels, starting from the provincial, regional, and even national levels.

With its performance in the program introduced in the region in 2021, Kalinga province has already brought home an amount of P2.5 million as a grant to date.

Mr. Jerald Encollado from Rizal, Kalinga, with the business enterprise "JE Dairy Farm," is the recent competitor from the province who was able to level up in the competition after becoming the sole young farmer from Kalinga to win at the regional level in 2023.

As a result, he was able to compete at the national level, but the results of the competition are still unannounced to date.

In the competition, provincial-level winners are entitled to P80,000 in start-up capital, while at the regional level, the best implementers receive P150,000.

Meanwhile, Benguet, according to the DA-Cordillera, is the top-performing province in the program based on the number of awardees, grants, and sales for the last three years, taking home P4.2 million in grants from its 35 BMCs and generating a total sale of P4.6 million.

As to the overall data, DA-Cordillera relayed that the region had already produced 155 winning BMCs. The region also came up with P8 million in sales and has already received P13.8 million in financial grants.

As to the business ventures of participants, vegetable production remained the most prevalent venture, which equates to 35 percent. It is followed by processing at 22 percent and livestock at 15 percent.