AIMING FOR A WORLD RECORD. People of Dingras, Ilocos Norte joined together as they attempt to set a new world record for the longest cassava cake. Leilanie G. Adriano

DINGRAS, Ilocos Norte—Once heavily devastated by typhoons dating back to 2001, local farmers have been looking for a spark of hope that they would return to being an agriculturally productive municipality again.

The spark of hope they have been looking for may have came in the form of the municipal government’s bid to break the world record for the largest cassava cake as it kick starts its major agro-economic enterprise push in the area.

Dingras, which has been known as the rice granary of Ilocos Norte, is carving a niche in the cassava cake market, which they intend not only for local consumption but also for export.

On October 8, 2007, a cassava cake measuring 300 feet long was put on display at the Dingras Municipal Hall. The said cake is expected to break the current record in the Guinness Book of Records.

A week before the demonstration, three trainers from Mariano Marcos State University’s College of Information Technology through the Dingras-based Center for Applied Research and Technology Transfer (CARTT), and the Department of Agriculture conducted a training for 40 women from the Rural Improvement Club and the Women and Development groups. The training was facilitated through the request of Dingras Mayor Marynette Gamboa, who allotted funds for the said event.

The participants were trained how to cook native delicacies such as bibingka (rice cakes), linapet, cassava putay and cassava cake. Of the four delicacies, cassava cake was chosen because of the availability of raw materials in the area, Sosima Demandante, a training facilitator, told The Ilocos Times in an interview.

With low capital requirement needed in cassava farming, local farmers have opted to plant this as an alternative crop next to rice, corn and vegetables.

“Cassava farming in Dingras town is not so much on a large scale but we are developing this crop because it has an easy maintenance of production and it can grow in any type soil and in any kind of terrain,” Dingras Councilor Samuel Demadante, chair of the Sangguniang Bayan’s agriculture committee, explained.

According to Demadante, the town has a lot of farmlands that could no longer be planted with rice due to intermediate rainfall. The DA then encouraged farmers to plant alternative crops like cassava, also known as “balanghoy” in the local dialect.

To boost the marketing of the new and improved cassava cake of this town, the large cassava cake put on display took at least 10 farmers to harvest one ton of raw materials that produced 800 kilos of finished cassava products out of a four-hectare cassava plantation.

The 40 training participants assisted the DA and the local government unit in the preparation of the cassava cake demonstration, taking them one day and one whole night.

Total cost for the said project ran up to P20,000 and estimated sales for the finished products have been pegged at P50,000.

In a separate interview with Gamboa, a first-term mayor, she said she wants to turn her town into a center of trade and industry in agriculture.

To do so, she increased the budget of agriculture as she also appropriated P20 million for farm-to-market roads, which has also been approved by the Department of Budget and Management and which added another P100 million support for farm-to-market roads to rural barangays.

Separate funds amounting to P64.7 million has also been secured by the lady mayor from national government agencies for the construction of a bridge that would connect Barangays Barong and Foz, for the improvement of dikes protecting Barangays Parado to Suyo, and the construction of several other flood control projects.

“Only 20 percent of our farmers plant hybrid crop varieties. This time, I plan to turn 80 percent [of the farmers] to plant hybrid,” Gamboa said during her first State of the Municipality Address, which she undertook to report what she has done in her first 100 days in office.

The said address was in time for Dingras’ People’s Day and which was attended by hundreds of local residents. The cassava cake demonstration was one of the highlights of the said event along with the launching of the e-center, which is expected to train local farmers in the use of the Internet for better access of technologies they may want to try and for other ventures they may also attempt in the future.

Leilanie G. Adriano

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