DAR refutes criticism on CARP implementation

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has asserted that the lives of farmers were improved by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), contrary to claims in a recent newspaper advertisement.

In a letter to The STAR, Remedios Reynoso, DAR Policy and Strategic Research Service OIC-director and Economic and Socio-Cultural Research Division chief, cited studies made by agrarian reform experts between 2000 and 2007 noting that CARP had improved the income and yields of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).

“Results of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) micro or household level studies in 2000 and 2007 (showed that) ARBs have higher real income per capita (based on 2000 prices) than non-ARBs, and both are increasing their real income per capita overtime (from 2000 to 2006),” read the letter.

“Poverty incidence among ARB respondents declined… In general, there are improvements in yields from 1990 to 2000 in rice and corn areas, which is a positive indicator of some positive effects of CARP in traditional crops.”

Quoting the UPLB studies, Reynoso said the level of per capita income for an ARB was still considerably higher at P18,851 compared to that of a non-ARB at P15,593.

The studies indicated that poverty incidence declined from 46 percent in 2000 to 45 percent in 2006.

Based on interviews with 745 ARB respondents, 75 percent of the awarded lands are still occupied by the original ARBs and about 21 percent have been transferred to heirs or relatives of the original ARBs, as only 3.5 percent have been transferred to individuals not related to the original ARBs, which could be presumed as transfers through the property rights market, according to studies.

Reynoso said another study conducted by the Asia Pacific Policy Center (APPC) showed that per capita expenditure, per capita income, and per capita net farm incomes of farmers with no lands (whether in agrarian reform communities or ARCs, or non-ARCs) are significantly lower than their counterparts owning land.

Findings in the 2007 macro level study of APPC pointed out that poverty incidence in ARC barangays decreased from 40 percent to 25 percent over the period 1990 and 2000, she added.

Rice farms in ARCs manifested average yield level of 3.8 tons per hectare compared to the national average of 3.6 tons per hectare; and corn, with an average yield of 2.7 tons per hectare is slightly higher than the national average of 2.2 tons per hectare, according to the study.

Reynoso said based on the 2000 macro or national level study of former economic planning secretary Dr. Cielito Habito, the aggregate productivity of land, measured as average value of real agricultural output per hectare, increased significantly in the post-Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) period.

“While Habito said the result cannot be readily attributed to CARP from the data alone, it is still consistent with what would be expected from more intensive land use that CARP seeks to bring about,” she said.

Meanwhile, Reynoso said the 2000 study of the Institute of Agrarian and Urban Development Studies showed that selling and mortgaging of lands by the ARBs constitute only less than a percent of the total number of parcels acquired by the ARBs.

This excluded those ARBs who stopped tilling the lands due to old age, lack of capital, calamity, and poor soil conditions, which is only equivalent to 0.2 percent of the total number of parcels acquired by the ARBs, she added.

Reynoso debunked the findings of the 2006 DAR-German Technical Cooperation (GTC) Study, which merely covered 11 barangays in Nueva Ecija, Laguna, Quezon and Iloilo. 

The samples considered in the study were purposively selected based on availability of baseline information on farming households and studies on rural market transactions, she added.

Reynoso said the selection of the areas in the GTC study “were already biased in favor (of) those areas where selling and mortgaging of lands are happening.”

“In a recent paper by an expert in agrarian reform and rural development, Dr. Arsenio Balisacan (2007), he posits that ‘assessing the impact of CARP vis-à-vis its objectives, i.e., equity and poverty reduction, is quite difficult because the observed household and community-level data are the outcomes of many factors that have influenced the evolution of the rural economy,” she said.

“Indeed, land reform should be seen as only one of the important elements of a comprehensive strategy for economic and social development.”

Last Oct. 23, The STAR published a full-page advertisement, “Mag AGRI-AGREE Tayo: Agrarian Reform Initiative for Agricultural Economic Empowerment, KEY TO GROWTH & PRODUCTIVITY.”

The advertisement contained an “Open Letter” to President Arroyo by the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry as to “the true, and tragically sad state of the (CARP) and the equally dire conditions of the farmer-beneficiaries whose lives are supposed to be uplifted by CARP.” – Katherine Adraneda