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Floats decorated with different kinds of flowers paraded along the street from Fuente Osmeña down to Plaza Sugbu as the Cebu City government opened its first ever flower festival on Wednesday.
Nenita Seno, regional coordinator of High Value Commercial Crops of the Department of Agriculture in Central Visayas (DA-7), said the festival was a venue to promote the cutflower industry of the city to the local and international markets.
During the opening day, different activities were held such as business matching between local producers and buyers and contests for the float parade, booth display and flower arrangement.
Joelito Baclayon, Cebu City agriculturist, said seven mountain barangays participated in the float parade.
These included Sirao, Malubog, Babag, Taptap, Pung-ol Sibugay, Bonbon and Adlaon.
Barangay Pung-ol Sibugay won first place and received P20,000 cash and a trophy, while second placer barangay Taptap took home P15,000 and trophy and third placer barangay Bonbon got P10,000 cash and trophy.
The flower arrangement competition was contested by cutflower growers from the mountain barangays in Cebu City.
Gerlan Borres placed first and received P3,000 cash, while Vincent Alvarez finished second and pocketed P2,000 and Gerald Borres bagged third place and went home P1,000 richer.
In the booth display contest, the winners were barangays Malubog (first place), Sirao (second place) and Bonbon (third place).
They received P10,000, P8,000 and P5,000 respectively, plus a trophy each.
Baclayon said the second day of the celebration, which was yesterday, featured technical sessions on the trends in cutflower industry in the city.
Around 600 cutflower growers from the city?s mountain barangays joined the celebration.
Baclayon said among the flowers produced by these cutflower growers, chrysanthemum and mums have the biggest production share of 70 percent, followed by roses with 25 percent, and gerbera, antheriums and gladiola with five percent.
Seno said the DA-7 is continuously extending technical assistance to stakeholders in the cutflower industry as well as to ube and peanut growers in the region.
The three-day festival will culminate today at the Plaza Sugbu with activities such as the continuation of business matching and the selling of flowers until 5 p.m.
The flower festival is organized by the Cebu City government, Cebu City Agriculture Department and the DA-7.
