The Department of Agrarian Reform
(DAR) in Cagayan province is presently assisting 59 agrarian reform
beneficiaries organizations (ARBOs) composed of more than forty agrarian reform
beneficiaries’ cooperatives. One component of DAR’s assistance is the
organizational management aspect composed of local capability building
activities for the proper management of these farmers’ cooperatives by the Coop
officers. This is being undertaken in partnership with the Cooperative
Development Authority (CDA).
Being the lead agency in cooperative
development, the Cooperative Development Authority provides technical assistance
to the ARB Cooperatives which include trainings, pre-registration seminars, mentoring,
coaching, consultancy, bookkeeping, accounting, auditing, assistance on regulatory
requirements, etc. The CDA also provides assistance for the rehabilitation of agrarian
reform beneficiaries’ cooperatives.
To strengthen this joint efforts,
the DAR and the CDA entered into a Memorandum of Agreement renewing their
respective commitments to promote and strengthen the ARB cooperatives and to
ensure the sustainability of the cooperative enterprise activities. The program, which is dubbed as DAR-CDA Partnership
II, intends to put in place a capacity development (CAPDEV) initiative, among
others, to improve service delivery to their members and positively giving
impact to their business performance and operations.
For the DAR Provincial Office of
Cagayan, most of the ARBO-cooperatives have already completed the mandatory
trainings for cooperatives under the partnership except for the newly organized
cooperatives and the ARB organizations/associations who have recently decided
to convert into agrarian reform beneficiaries’ cooperatives who need to undergo
trainings on cooperative operation and management.
These capability building activities
and enterprise management trainings are significantly important at present
because these ARBOs in Cagayan are recipients of farm machineries such as hand-tractors,
mechanical tillers, four-wheel drive tractors, combine harvesters, hauling
trucks, etc. As such, it is essential that they are equipped with the knowledge
and capacities to operate these multi-million peso assets into a viable income
generating business enterprises for their cooperatives.
The present government under the
Duterte Administration has made it possible for viable ARB cooperatives to
access farm machineries to maximize farm productivity pursuant to the food
security program and increase their income to counter the adverse effects of
climate change.
The Memorandum of Agreement seeks
to renew DAR and CDA’s commitment to develop functional agrarian reform cooperatives
managing profitable and sustainable enterprises in order to better serve their members
and contribute in improving the quality of life of ARBs, their household and
rural women. Generally, it aims to support the government’s program of reducing
poverty through cooperatives.
