NCotabato banana co-op gets DAR truck

THE Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) turned over a hauling truck to a small banana farmers’ cooperative in Araka town, North Cotabato to enhance its agro-enterprise operations, an official said on November 23.

Charish Paña, provincial agrarian reform program officer, said the turnover of the hauler truck to the Arakan River Irrigators Credit Cooperative (Aricco) was carried under the DAR’s Linking Smallholder Farmers to Markets with Microfinance Project.

“We are looking forward to seeing the Aricco collective marketing operations expand to neighboring villages to maximize the market opportunities and boost the profitability of buying and selling Cardava bananas,” Paña said.

Aricco officials expressed their gratitude to the DAR provincial office for the hauler truck that would help them in transporting their harvests.

“We will no longer rent vehicles for transporting our products to the processing plant, which incurs a high operational expense for the cooperative,” Aricco chairman Bonifacio Calayco Jr. said, adding that the DAR provision is a rare opportunity given to them.

He said the hauling truck will mean more savings and increased income for the cooperative and can be translated into benefits for its members.

The DAR also assisted in linking Aricco to Liberty Fruits Inc. in Kidapawan City as the institutional buyer, where they deliver 11 tons of Cardava bananas every two weeks.

Meanwhile, the Coffee Roasting Processing Project implemented under the program of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) was turned over last Tuesday to the Barangay Perez Roasted Coffee Production Association in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato.

Through the project, the association was given a 12-kilogram coffee roasting processing machine while 20 members of the group also underwent training in coffee roasting processing.

In her message as the representative of City Mayor Paolo Evangelista, Herminia Infanta, Public Employment Service Office manager, said the project will contribute to the continuous operation and business of the association’s coffee production, which is their chosen project.

The project was implemented through various government offices such as the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the 39th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army.

Perez is one of the villages in Kidapawan where the NTF-Elcac is targeting the aspiration to end the insurgency in the area.