The Department of Agriculture (DA) in Western Visayas has provided support to the cacao industry in the municipality of Dingle, Iloilo.

Relvin Paragua, DA High Value Crops Development Program (HVCDP) cacao regional coordinator, said that the agency has given more than 40,000 cacao seedlings to the municipality in order to boost the town’s potential for cacao production.

"Cacao industry in the region is very promising even though we are still in the infancy stage in terms of establishment and expansion of the crop,” he said.

Apart from providing seedlings, they are also a recipient of various trainings and post-harvest facilities and equipment such as fermentation boxes and all-weather dryers to scale up cacao enterprise development of the area.

Paragua said that DA6 has also pipelined various interventions for the cacao growers to further grow this industry.

Meanwhile, Dingle has received various cacao technology trainings initiated by Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA) over the years.