Over 33K Cebu farmers received land from DAR

CEBU, Philippines - More than 28 years since Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program was enacted, 35,538 hectares of the 37,516-hectare agricultural lands in Cebu province are already owned by small-scale farmer beneficiaries as of June 2016.

Department of Agricultural Reform-Cebu Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer Elvira Bation said Cebu province has 37,516 hectares of agricultural lands covered under the program with 33,605 agrarian reform beneficiaries.

"We are almost done on distributing all the agricultural lands. We are hoping, on our earlier target, that we will finish the distribution by 2016 but we may be extending to 2017 maybe," said Bation yesterday during the weekly forum hosted by the Philippine Information Agency-7 held in its office in Cebu City.

Bation explained that the remaining lands that are undistributed are those that are still contested or subjected to a legal dispute.

Bation added that the agency is focused on determining the present living conditions of the beneficiaries to follow with the new policies and thrust of the present administration.

She announced yesterday that the agency is holding an ongoing inventory of the beneficiaries and the status of their tilled lands to determine their present economic strata for them to provide assistance to those who need them.

Based on initial observations, Bation said some have improved their living conditions while some remained poor.

Some were also excluded from the list of beneficiaries since they sold their owned lands to developers for conversion into residential areas or commercial and industrial zones.

She explained that this could not be prevented considering that Cebu has been a progressive province where developments are mushrooming in several localities.

Alvin Arante, chief of the Legal Division of DAR-Cebu, said that while they could not deny that infrastructure development has become dominant in the province, he warns that gradual conversion of agricultural lands to commercial and residential areas might impact food production.

DAR-Cebu has provided capability-building trainings to capacitate farmers to enhance their daily productivity. The agency offers beneficiaries support services like infrastructure facilities, marketing assistance program, credit assistance program, and technical support programs.

"We have to find ways that our existing agricultural areas could produce more. Under the policy of our Constitution, agricultural improvement and industrial progress should be working hand in hand," he said. (FREEMAN)