DOST assisted papaya pickles product

A group of papaya producers in Culaba town Province of Biliran will soon be producing this papaya pickles through funding support from DOST 8.

Papaya is the town's identified product under the OTOP program. DOST's support include the acquisition of necessary equipment and utensils for the Community based project that would support the processing needs of the Culaba Papaya Producers Association. The Common Service Facility will be managed by the Municipal Agricultural Office through Mrs. Estefania T. Loyola, the Mun. Agriculturist.

Earlier in January 2011, the DOST 8 released PhP 214,000.00 funding assistance to the Local Government Unit of Culaba to finance the equipment component and packaging development for papaya pickles production. The facility will be housed in a newly renovated processing area within the LGU compound. Hon. Enrico Uyvico, Culaba's Chief Executive is optimistic this assistance will be able to come up with better product out of the local raw materials available in the area.

The immediate beneficiaries of the project are the papaya growers/farmers, processors and SME’s in the municipality of Culaba. At present, there are 311 papaya farmers/growers in the municipality covering 10 hectares of land area. This constitutes 3.21% of the total agricultural land area of the municipality. The estimated monthly output is 3,504 kgs. Fifty percent (50%) of the total monthly output will be processed into pickles, jams and dried papaya.