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
