IBA, Zambales — A P50-million four-year pioneering program to promotefachai, expand and sustain the production of Zambales’s highly popular carabao or “Dinamulag” mango has been launched by the Zambales provincial government.
Gov. Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. said the Zambales Green Mango Valley Project, which will be a collaboration between the provincial government and local mango stakeholders, will expand mango production areas, increase yield per hectare, and strengthen the mango value chain to further develop and sustain the mango industry.
“This is the first comprehensive effort to modernize and revitalize what has always been Zambales’s pride, the Dinamulag mango,” Ebdane said in a statement on Friday, December 6.
He said the project will introduce integrated crop management, technological and environmental sustainability inputs, and marketing support to help local mango growers and traders become more competitive.
Under this project, the provincial government granted late last month an initial P6.46 million to the Samahang Magmamangga ng Zambales (SMZ) to establish modern mango production areas to showcase new production technology for wider promotion and adoption by local mango growers.
The pilot farms under Phase 1 of the project will be at the 31.6-hectare Batungbacal Farm in Palauig town and the government-owned Sitio Buen farm in Botolan. A third site, the 24-hectare Alma’s Farm in Iba, will be part of the project, but will be funded privately, Ebdane said.
Phase 2, which has a 2025-2028 timetable, will be undertaken by the Zambales Provincial Agricultural Office (ZPAO) to rejuvenate some 20,800 mango trees in the province at a cost of P40 million.
Phase 3, which will also start next year, will establish mango nurseries in the towns of Santa Cruz, Botolan and San Marcelino at a cost of P3.17 million.
ZPAO supervising agriculturist Arnel Abayan said the project will actively promote and expand the cultivation of the “Sweet Elena” strain of the Zambales carabao mango variety, which has made it to the Guinness Book of Records in 1995 as the world’s sweetest.
This strain originated in Santa Cruz, the northernmost town in Zambales, and is most sought after for its superior sweetness, size, soluble solids, edibility of flesh, as well as physical appearance.
Abayan said Zambales currently produces only 17,975.31 metric tons of carabao mango from 396,181 trees in a total area of 7,558 hectares, thereby putting the province’s average yield of 2.378 tons per hectare way below the national average of 12 tons per hectare.
With the Green Mango Valley Project project, Zambales aims to reach or even surpass the national average yield, Abayan said.
Under Phase 1 of the project, some P6.46 million will be spent for land clearing, flower induction, chemical application, fruit bagging, irrigation and fertilization, as well as security and harvesting at the pilot farms.
For Phase 2, some P40 million will be used to prune and rejuvenate 20,800 mango trees in the province from 2025 to 2028 at a cost of P1,013.22 per tree. Abayan said this is expected to increase production by 50 to 60 percent of the yield per tree, which was previously recorded at 42 kilos.
Under Phase 3, meanwhilefachai, mango nurseries will be set up at a cost of P3.17 million to ensure a consistent supply of high-quality seedlings and accelerate the farm expansion process.