{"id":11892,"date":"2011-11-21T05:22:16","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T05:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=11892"},"modified":"2011-11-21T05:22:16","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T05:22:16","slug":"its-time-to-start-farming-all-available-lands-in-nmi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/its-time-to-start-farming-all-available-lands-in-nmi\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;It&#8217;s time to start farming all available lands in NMI&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Clarissa David<br \/>\nReporter<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-width: 0px;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/imgupload\/issx9999ns114397.jpg\" alt=\"Panelists Nick Nishikawa of the Hotel Association of the NMI, David Sablan of Century Insurance, and Wolf Mojica of Duty Free Shoppers listen to a participant during the 1st CNM Specialty Crop Conference held Thursday at the Hibiscus Hall of Fiesta Resort and Spa in Garapan. Inset shows keynote speaker Frank Atalig. (Clarissa V. David)\" width=\"100\" height=\"67\" border=\"0\" \/>\u00a0A specialty crops producer from Rota urged farmers in the CNMI to \u201cstop complaining and start working\u201d and work toward exporting specialty crops from the islands to bring in more revenue and improve the agriculture industry in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe market has been available for years. It&#8217;s just that we&#8217;re not doing anything. We&#8217;re just complaining and that&#8217;s our problem. So get your ass up and start working,\u201d Frank Atalig, president of TJ Enterprise, said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Atalig was the keynote speaker at the 1st CNMI Specialty Crop Conference hosted by the Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Northern Marianas College Community Development Institute held at the Fiesta Resort and Spa Hibiscus Hall.<\/p>\n<p>The conference theme was \u201cStrengthening Specialty Crops Competitiveness &amp; Marketability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Atalig said people in the CNMI \u201ctalk too much\u201d and complain about the government but do \u201ctoo little.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen do we change that attitude?\u201d asked Atalig. \u201cWe should just blame ourselves for not doing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He called on local farmers to \u201cfarm the lands available\u201d instead of getting \u201cmad\u201d at foreign nationals who are earning income in the CNMI by working on available lands to produce crops.<\/p>\n<p>Atalig said the Commonwealth should focus on exporting its specialty crops such as the hot pepper to bring in \u201cfresh revenue from the outside within our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s something whereby we can turn our natural resources available within the CNMI and exporting it, thereby bringing in revenue from the outside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>With the abundance of breadfruit on the islands, Atalig said it could be a potential specialty crop which, when given added value like turning it into flour, can bring in more revenue for the CNMI.<\/p>\n<p>The conference also discussed agricultural issues such as specialty crops program and promotions, agri-tourism, quality assurance marketing, and specialty crop market partnerships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Clarissa David Reporter \u00a0A specialty crops producer from Rota urged farmers in the CNMI&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}