768 Negros farmers are now landowners

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has distributed certificates of land ownership award (CLOAs) to 768 farmer-beneficiaries in Negros Occidental, covering almost 400 hectares of agricultural lands.

DAR Regional Director Stephen Leonidas said credit assistance worth 16 million will also be available to 547 farmers belonging to seven recipient cooperatives.

"The provision of credit lines is a tripartite program of the DAR, Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) under government’s Agricultural Production Credit Program (APCP)," Leonidas explained.

"The program is designed primarily to provide loans to farmer-beneficiaries and their households through cooperatives or agrarian reform beneficiaries' organizations (ARBOs) and other farmers' organizations to support their individual or communal crop production, agri-enterprise and other livelihood projects," he added.

The credit grant recipients are farmers belonging to seven ARBOs, namely, Haganay Agrarian Reform Cooperative, Hacienda Bongco Farmers Association, Unson-Gil Farms and Agricultural Corp., Aliwanay Agrarian Reform Cooperative, De Fuego I Farmers Association, Hacienda Caridad III Farmworkers Association, and San Jose 2 Farmworkers Association.

"The provision of credit assistance to ARBs is a DAR program which seeks the reduction of poverty in agrarian reform areas," he said.

DAR has also turned over 43 units of various farm machineries to 27 cooperatives to increase the sugarcane production of agrarian reform beneficiaries.

The machineries delivered include 13 heavy tractors, 18 shredders and 12 rice threshers worth 72 million to 27 ARBOs in Negros Occidental.

"These farm machineries will service more than 3,000 farmer beneficiaries. And because the machines are mechanized, it will make farming easier and faster for them. It will also greatly improve their yield and increase their income," Leonidas said.

Following the theme "National Week for Overcoming Extreme Poverty," DAR Undersecretary for Foreign Assisted and Special Projects Herman Ongkiko explained to the farmers the department’s programs in the implementation of government’s Accelerated and Sustainable Anti-Poverty (ASAP) program.

"The ASAP program is an inter-agency effort that seeks to reduce poverty by creating sustainable employment and income-generating opportunities for the poor," Ongkiko explained.