San Roque is a remote barangay in Digos City. Corn was the staple, food in this town in the 1940s, and then in 1970, some farmers started to plant sugarcane as their main crop. But since the price of sugar fluctuated, they shifted to mango production, which has been booming up to now due to the high demand of both export and local markets.
About 75 percent of the mangoes produced in Digos City came from San Roque, hence it is dubbed as the “mango country of Digos City.” More and more farmers are venturing in mango growing because they earn twice of their income from sugarcane. I am one of them. Like my neighbors, I planted my 2-hectare lot to grafted “Mango Cebu”, a sweet and juicy variety.
But the first farmer in San Roque who has succeeded in mango production is Arnold Nebria. He started as a tenant, and with his net profit, he bought agricultural lands and planted these to mangoes. Today, he grosses an average of P1 million every harvest. Another successful farmer is Victoriano Ramos. In September 2008, this 70-year-old farmer and councilman of San Roque has earned almost a million pesos from mangoes.