DAR, CSU and LGUs to prime up Cagayan agribiz through ARC clusters

TUGUEGARAO CITY. The Department of Agrarian Reform Provincial Office of Cagayan-Batanes (DARPO Cagayan-Batanes), in a meeting with the Cagayan State University, Tuguegarao campus, together with officials from the local government units of Tuguegarao, Iguig, Penablanca, Piat, Amulung, Solana, Tuao and Enrile held on November 15, 2013 disclosed a plan to create agrarian reform community clusters and that they have agreed and actually started to develop an integrated agribusiness plan to serve as a matrix of the rural enterprises to be undertaken in the ARC cluster.

An ARC cluster is composed of two or more agrarian reform communities (ARCs) who have banded together to share resources, to work together to attain economies of scale and to expand their business operations that will include other municipalities.

The ARC Cluster shall be promoted as the convergence point of all government program implemented by government agencies such that each program and project is complimentary and supportive to each other. The strategy shall adopt a more comprehensive and integrated approach to rural development through collaborative efforts by all stake holders and partners. The bottom line objective is to improve productivity and income of the farmers by focusing agribusiness development of agro-industrial crops and to create economies of scale and active, harmonious and peaceful communities. Another aim of this strategy is to widen the impact area that the ARC Program has started. It is intended to concretely operationalize partnership and convergence of development interventions in the rural areas not only in ARCs but to include the Non-ARC communities. 

The Program  shall adopt a more comprehensive approach which is multi-disciplinary in character, and would try to integrate the spatial and physical development with the economic, social and institutional aspects for a given geographic area.

The Cagayan South ARC Cluster will take the lead in the implementation of the plan. The Cagayan South ARC Cluster is composed of agrarian reform communities in Tuguegarao City and in the municipalities of Piat, Amulung (West), Solana, Tuao and Enrile. The cluster has been created under the industry-based category and will be a major player in the grains and sugarcane industry.

The World Bank shall compliment DAR’s efforts in priming up the agribusinesses of the ARC cluster through funding from the World Bank-GROWTH project. The parties have committed to work together to prepare and eventually submit an integrated agribusiness plan for the Cluster ARC.

The Cagayan State University (CSU) through its College of Business, Entrepreneurship and Accountancy shall undertake to equip the members and officers of the key agrarian reform beneficiaries’ organizations (ARBOs) with skills and capabilities to manage and operate the various agribusiness enterprises of their organizations. Photos by: Aldwin Addun

DAR-DOJ filing cases against illegal land conversions in Cagayan province

Meeting of the Cagayan DAR-DOJ Provincial Task Force 
on Illegal Conversion

TUGUEGARAO CITY – The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Provincial Office of Cagayan-Batanes and the Department of Justice (DOJ), specifically, the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor, during the meeting of the Provincial Task Force on Illegal Conversion sometime in October 2013 disclosed that the DARPO Cagayan-Batanes has already submitted a case folder to the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor involving a big housing developer in Tuguegarao City for undertaking a housing project over agricultural lands without filing an Application for Land Use Conversion before the DAR as required by law.

The case involved parcels of agricultural lands, some of which are covered under PD No. 27 (with Emancipation Patent) which were prematurely converted into non-agricultural/residential use. Land use conversion is the act or process of changing the current physical use of a piece of agricultural land into some other use, as approved by DAR.

            According to Virgilio M. Acasili, Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II  (PARPO-II) of Cagayan-Batanes, the Joint Provincial Task Force on Illegal Conversion of Cagayan province composed of DAR and DOJ officials have intensified the campaign against illegal conversion of agricultural lands into non-agricultural uses. Other cases of this nature will be likewise transmitted to the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor immediately after the requisite investigation and case build-up are completed.

Agriculture could be carried out only in certain types of land. Thus agricultural lands should be rightfully considered a finite natural resource, further depletion of which would threaten national food security. In contrast, housing and industrialization for example, require land merely for space and may therefore be implemented in lands marginal for agriculture.

Section 65 of RA 6657 empowers the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to authorize under certain conditions, the reclassification or conversion and the disposition of lands awarded to the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs).

According to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Opinion No. 44, the authority of DAR to allow land use conversion of agricultural lands into non-agricultural uses is not limited only to lands awarded under Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (RA No. 6657), as amended by RA No. 9700 (CARPER).  Any conversion of private agricultural land to non-agricultural use should be cleared beforehand by DAR.

An exception to this is when the land is already classified as commercial, industrial or residential before 15 June 1988, there is no longer a need for any conversion clearance. However, the authority of DAR to approve conversion may be exercised from the date of effectivity of the RA 6657, that is, June 15, 1988.

Illegal land use conversion is punishable under Paragraph (b), Article 73 of Republic Act No. 6657, as amended by Republic Act No. 9700 and carries a penalty of imprisonment of three (3) years and one (1) day to six (6) years or a fine of not less than Fifty thousand pesos (P50,000.00) and not more than One hundred fifty thousand pesos (P150,000.00), or both, at the discretion of the court. If the offender is a corporation or association, the officer responsible therefore shall be criminally liable. by:christiandsales