Ready for the Talong Festival

By Eva C. Visperas

This agricultural town, Villasis, known as the “Vegetable Bowl of Pangasinan”, is ready to stage its second Talong Festival on January 19 in time for the town’s 200th year foundation and town fiesta celebration.

Mayor Nonato Abrenica told this corner and fellow media colleagues Ding Micua, Cesar Ramirez and Orlan de Vera that the occasion will be marked with various activities that will feature their top and most popular product, talong (eggplant).

There will be the Talong Cookfest where people from various barangays will show their skills in cooking talong 101 ways to be held at the town gymnasium around 10:00 a.m. January 19. Ten out of 21 barangays of this second class municipality are into eggplant planting.

In the afternoon, students clad in different indigenous costumes will fill the main streets for the “street dancing” highlighting the eggplant product as they sway to samba music. Guest performers from the showbiz world will also join the street dancing to add color to the event.

This will be followed by a Talong Grill where 500 grills measuring one meter long each will be lined up on the street fronting the town hall for the simultaneous grilling of about 1,500 kilograms of eggplant. Other food items like fish, pork chop, hotdog and chicken will likely be placed on the grill shortly after as people are expected to gather to partake the food during the street party.

A free concert featuring Manila’s top bands will provide entertainment to the people, Abrenica said.

The town prides itself of its eggplant produce of the hybrid type – long, smooth, and sweet tasting – best for inihaw (grill), omelette or pinakbet (when harvested young).

Abrenica said the tremendous success of the first Talong Festival last year inspired the local government to pursue it again this year because of the very positive response from the people and the boost that the marketing of their top product received as a result of the festival.

He is confident that people outside Pangasinan now know his town as “The Talong Capital of Pangasinan” as a result of last year’s festival.  The town is hemmed in between the bustling barangay Carmen in Rosales town and the trade center Urdaneta City. On its borders are the towns of Malasiqui and Asingan.

“Hindi na kami kulang sa pansin ngayon,” Abrenica crowed.

To prove his point, he cited two major national television networks that will be here for the live coverage of their activity for their separate morning show programs.

Cornelio Atchuela, the town agriculturist, said about 315 hectares of agricultural land was planted to talong last year and produced about 7,875 tons of eggplant. About 520 farmers are known to be involved in eggplant planting.

He said the town’s year-round supply of eggplants (making it the top talong producer in Pangasinan) has been made possible by their “Plant Now, Pay Later” seed assistance program for the farmers that was launched last year, and now a 10 percent seed subsidy program and the provision of off-season technology, techno- demos, to completely wean the farmers from the dole-out mentality.

A farmer here spends about P20,000 per hectare for eggplant production that yields 60 percent return on their investment.

The mayor said the construction of their Bagsakan Market where agricultural products are sold at cheap wholesale prices has also been a big help to farmers in marketing their produce. Traders from other provinces (even as far as Metro Manila) who supply various markets and restaurants in their areas come here.

Talong farming  has also made the farmers here venture into raising other pinakbet ingredients like tomatoes, okra, ampalaya, onions, among others as well as rice and corn to further augment their income.

Abrenica said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been invited to lead the grand inauguration of their new municipal hall also on the same day.

Let’s go to Villasis and enjoy the merriment of the Talong Fest!

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/business-log/)

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