The province of Kalinga, known for its high-quality coffee products, received a PHP256-million funding for the construction of a 12.5-kilometer farm-to-market road.

In a press release on Friday, the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) – Cordillera said the project will directly connect the villages of Pinukpuk, Pakawit, and Bayaw to the national road that leads to the market center in Pinukpuk and Tabuk City.

The road will further link the communities to another national road heading toward Tuao, Cagayan.

The project broke ground in Pakawit, Pinukpuk, Kalinga on Thursday.

“The project is under the Department of Agriculture (DA) – PRDP Scale-Up project, which is an internationally funded project in support of the goal to boost agricultural commodity production and eventually improve farmers’ lives,” Danilo Daguio, Technical Director for Operations of DA-Cordillera and the head of the PRDP program in the region, said.

It is the sixth infrastructure subproject in Kalinga approved under the DA-PRDP, with an expected completion date of September 2026.

Daguio said the province “has received about a billion worth of infrastructure and enterprise development projects that will improve production, improve quality and ensure easy transport of the products to the market.

Kalinga has implemented PHP1.40 billion worth of infrastructure subprojects and PHP21.30 million worth of enterprise subprojects since the PRDP began supporting coffee, banana, and heirloom rice among other commodities since 2014. (PNA)