Organics market of NegOcc

August 13, 2014

Organics market, Bacolod City

While press releases trumpet Zarraga town as home to the soon-to-be-built first commercial station of organically grown farm products in Iloilo Province, neighbor Negros Occidental has already one built in the time of former Governor Coscolluela yet and is flourishing not only as market but as some sort of garden and hang-out as it has a food court that serves food and beverages from organic farm products -- rice, corn, coffee, choco, rootcrops, fresh vegetables, piaya, and meat.

With Bacolod City Attorney Sarah Villamor

One can pick vegetables from the row of stalls and have them cooked in different karenderia inside the pavilion in the same compound owned by the Province of Negros Occidental.

The Department of Agriculture (DA) considers NegOcc the trailblaizer in organic agriculturein Western Visayas that includes the other provinces of Iloilo, Capiz, Aklan, Antique and Guimaras.

At the entrance of the organics center in Bacolod City reads a sign (sorry, forgot to take a shot of it with my cam) "Negros Occidental is GMO-Free" which I consider a dig at my home province Iloilo where BT-Corn by the world's notorious agri-chem Monsanto USA is expanding with impunity.

I was on my way to Dumaguete but before that, Bundo who fetched me from the pier, first drove me for a courtesy call with his beloved

Sarah Villamor, the Bacolod City attorney, then to the organics center for coffee and organic biscuits.

The rest of the photos are taken in Dumaguete, including the jail visit where the "actors" raised clinched fists.