HR Bill okeys funding for DAR and DA to insure ARBs under PCIC

The House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee has approved the provision for funding of a full insurance coverage for all qualified Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Under the Bill, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) are required to include in their agencies’ programs the operational requirements for the implementation of the ARB insurance program. The House Committee on Agrarian Reform has already endorsed the Bill for plenary approval.

The ARB insurance intends to provide crop insurance protection covering about 224,000  ARBs or members of their farming households involving some 330,000 hectares of agricultural land  and raising some 30,700 farm animals. The bill would provide ARBs with the insurance protection against compensable losses arising from natural calamities, plant diseases, and pest infestations of their crops and those affecting their livestock and farm machineries.

Specifically, compensable losses from which ARBs are insured include natural calamities such as typhoon, flood, drought, earthquake, volcanic eruption, frost, and other destructive natural phenomena such as heat and hot wind. These also include plant diseases caused by pathogens, bacteria, fungi, viruses, virus-like pathogens and other similar foreign bodies, pest infestations caused by nematodes, insects, mites and spiders, millipedes and centipedes, symphylans, slugs and snails, among others, and loss of life and/or injury to the qualified ARB from accident or any other causes.

The insurance shall cover crops such as: palay; corn; sugarcane; high-value crops as defined in Section 4 (b) of RA No. 9700, otherwise known as the “High-Value Crops Development Act of 1995.” Also covered are coconut; tobacco; aquaculture; livestock; and non-crop agricultural assets.

The Bill would complement the already existing agricultural insurance for ARBs presently participating in the agrarian reform production credit program (APCP) and the credit assistance programs for program beneficiaries development in the financing programs implemented by the DA, DAR, Land Bank which cover all the regular insurance as implemented by the PCIC.

Insured ARB in Solana, Cagayan receives indemnification from typhoon damage in Solana, Cagayan.

Farm Business School (FBS): Transforming farmers into entrepreneurs

SOLANA, CAGAYAN-Around twenty-six (26) farmers from the Cadaanan United Farmers Association (CUFA) in Solana, Cagayan province recently completed the training on the first batch of Farm Business School (FBS) conducted by the Department of Agrarian Reform Provincial Office in Cagayan (DARPO-Cagayan). The FBS is a hands-on intensive training  originally formulated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations intended to extend entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to farmers who would be able to manage farm business operations on their own.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in a 2011 Report stated that farmers need to adopt their farm business to market changes and to improve their efficiency, profitability and increase their income in order to be competitive and be able to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

The FAO is an intergovernmental organization which has 194 member-nations, two associate members and one member organization, the European Union. Its employees come from various cultural backgrounds and are experts in the multiple fields of activity FAO engages in. FAO’s staff capacity allows it to support improved governance among others, generate, develop and adapt existing tools and guidelines and provide targeted governance support as a resource to country and regional level FAO offices. Headquartered in Rome, Italy, FAO is present in over 130 countries.

The FBS was developed to improve the farmer-producers' entrepreneurial and management skills. Participants work and learn as a group through hands-on activities, addressing issues pertaining to the supply chain market challenges. Experiments on crop production are also encountered to improve existing practices with the end of increasing the socio economic benefits through participation in agricultural and market activities.

The training includes activities that study the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis, pinpointing and introduction of fresh products with packaging, evaluating profit margins, and crafting a business plan. Farmer-participants interact with market and industry players (traders, investors, suppliers). After which they advance as fully capacitated agricultural entrepreneurs.

Traditionally, Filipino farmers are seen as mere producers of agri products and not as businessmen. As such, they usually do not earn much from selling their produce as they are unskilled in terms of business acumen.  Because of that, only the middlemen and the traders are at the receiving end of the profits out of the farmers’ toil. Worse, after paying his debts to usurers, he is left with nothing when the planting season begins and again, he is forced to borrow planting capital at usurious rates and so begins another never-ending cycle of oppressive indebtedness.

The FBS enhances the capacity of farmers to take part and benefit from agricultural market connectivity and builds on the collective/group experiential learning of fellow farmers and shifting from originally production oriented to a business-oriented event. Additionally, there are also ongoing FBS sessions in Alcala, Cagayan for the same purpose being undertaken by DARPO-Cagayan. (Photos by: Elmer Custodio and Santi Mabborang)

Traditionally, Filipino farmers are seen as mere producers of agri products and not as businessmen. As such, they usually do not earn much from selling their produce as they are unskilled in terms of business acumen.  

The training includes activities that study the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis, pinpointing and introduction of fresh products with packaging, evaluating profit margins, and crafting a business plan. 

Participants work and learn as a group through hands-on activities, addressing issues pertaining to the supply chain market challenges. 

Experiments on crop production are also encountered to improve existing practices with the end of increasing the socio economic benefits through participation in agricultural and market activities. 

The FBS enhances the capacity of farmers to take part and benefit from agricultural market connectivity and builds on the collective/group experiential learning of fellow farmers and shifting from originally production oriented to a business-oriented events. 

DAR grants Nabbotuan MPC Php257k for Muscovado sugar processing

     The Department of Agrarian Reform Provincial Office (DARPO) of Cagayan-Batanes led the ground breaking ceremony of the Nabbotuan Multi-Purpose Cooperative in barangay Nabbotuan, Solana, Cagayan wherein the later is a recipient of Two Hundred Fifty-Seven Thousand and Five Hundred pesos as funding for the construction/expansion of their Muscovado Sugar processing center under the DAR’s Village Level Processing Center and Enhancement Project (VLPCEP).

     The ceremony was also attended by the very supportive officials of the Local Government Unit of Solana headed by Mayor Jenalyn Carag. Barangay officials of Nabbotuan also warmly welcomed the project as an indication of increasing capacity of women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth processes in ways that recognise the value of their contributions, respect their dignity and making it possible to negotiate a fairer distribution of the benefits of growth vis-à-vis their local economy.

     Nabbotuan MPC is an agrarian reform organization (ARBO) within the FURABAN Agrarian Reform Community. The Agrarian Reform Community (ARC) Development Strategy was adopted in 1993 to focus on priority agrarian reform areas to maximize resource allocation, complementation, and mobilization for greater efficiency and impact taking into consideration the limited financial and material resources of the government.

      An ARC is a barangay or cluster of contiguous barangays within a municipality where majority of the CARP-covered lands have been awarded to a critical mass of Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs).  The ARC strategy applies the integrated area development approach where the ARBs and their communities are the primary focal points of development interventions.

     Once completed, the processing center shall help increase the livelihood of the members of the cooperative.  They will process raw sugar into Muscovado sugar which commands a higher price due to its higher demand by reason of its health benefits.

     Muscovado sugar is the unrefined dark brown sugar that is more sticky and courser than the regular brown sugar. It is the instantaneous sugar created in crystallizing sugarcane juice. In contrast with other sugars, Muscovado sugar has a distinctive flavor and taste that retains the natural flavor and color of the sugarcane juice, as such it is also considered as the purest form of sugar. It also retains the natural nutrients such as calcium, chromium, cobalt, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, iron, zinc and other vitamins. It is also rich in phytonutrients, antioxidants, proteins, fiber, etc., with are usually destroyed by filtering, bleaching and heating during the production of the regular refined white sugar.

     The VLPCEP aims to develop market competitive Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) products and enhance enterprise and livelihood activities at the community level in selected agrarian reform areas through assistance in product value-adding, improvement of facilities, and assistance in documentation and Food and Drug Administration license application. The implementation of the project is part of the mandate of DAR to provide support services to ARCs.

     Under the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) executed between the DAR and the ARBO, the members of the cooperative shall manage and maintain the processing center, keep and maintain the recording system for the activity, and shall ensure the continuous production of Muscovado sugar as an additional business enterprise of the cooperative.  

See: photos on Facebook

Solar Pump Irrigation Projects for Cagayan North ARBs

Tuguegarao City, Cagayan. The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Soils and Water Management (DA-BSWM) have completed the ground validation of three sites in Cagayan province for the construction and implementation of Solar Pump Irrigation Systems for agrarian reform beneficiaries in the province costing approximately P877,500.00 per site.

     It was during a trip to Aparri, Cagayan Valley where Department of Agricultute Secretary Emmanuel Pinol found out the irony of so much available water in the vast Cagayan River but rice fields just beside it were dry and unproductive during summer months.

     On December 23, 2016 the DAR through Secretary Rafael "Ka Paeng" Mariano and the DA-BSWM signed a Memorandum of Agreement for the implementation of the Solar Pump Irrigation System project, wherein DAR provided funds for the project in the amount of fifteen million pesos and DA through the BSWM to undertake planning of development of small scale irrigation projects intended to enhance farm productivity and as adaptation measures to Climate Change that will benefit agrarian reform beneficiaries to achieve climate change resiliency.

     There are three identified pilot sites to be managed by agrarian reform beneficiaries organizations (ARBOs) in Cagayan: (1) San Esteban Farmers Cooperative in the Eastern Alcala Agrarian Reform Community (Eastern Alcala ARC) in the municipality of Alcala; (2) Lasvinag Multi-Purpose Cooperative in the Lasvinag Agrarian Reform Community (Lasvinag ARC) in the municipality of Gattaran; and (3) Nabbotuan Multi-Purpose Cooperative in the Furaban Agrarian Reform Community (Furaban ARC) in the municipality of Solana.  

     The identified project areas earlier passed the criteria set to sustain the projects as these areas are planted with vegetable crops and have existing deep well water facilities for farms indicating the potential availability of ground water sources. The ARBOs are likewise established and technically capable of sustaining the project.

     The DAR-DA-BSWM Solar Pump Irrigation System project is being implemented pursuant to Republic Act 9729, known as the Climate Change Act wherein it mandates government to take effective actions to mitigate the effects climate change. It calls for collective action among government agencies to pursue climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, to implement programs and projects to lead communities toward resiliency amidst the risks and vulnerabilities brought about by climate change.

     Under the Solar Pump Irrigation System project, the pilot ARBOs shall be provided with solar panels and control accessories that will generate solar energy. Submersible water pumps shall also be provided to draw water from underground or open source. A water tank to store the water shall also be constructed that will include pipe layout system to distribute water for its intended use. The projects are expected to be operational by end of July 2017. There are also other project sites in Isabela and in Region 1. 

Solar panels for ARBOs. 

     Solar energy is a growing technology and a viable source of renewable energy for operating irrigation systems in the countryside. It is cheaper than conventional fossil-based generated power system. It is sustainable and does not contribute to carbon emission which is the main source of global warming.