AGRARIAN Reform Secretary Bernie Cruz has challenged central and field officials and staff to exert more efforts in bringing out the best in the farmer-beneficiaries with the end in view of preparing them for a greater role in nation-building.
“We have to raise the bar in our dealings with our beneficiaries. The time for spoon-feeding is over. Now is the time to make them understand that sooner or later they will direct their own course,” Cruz said during the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Development Support Program Assessment of 2021 and Operations and Planning for Calendar Year 2022 at the Ciudad Christhia, San Mateo, Rizal.
Cruz said the setting of the new standard is emphasized in the “RAISE the ARCs,” the DAR’s upgraded rural development scheme. It refers to “Resilient, Accelerated, Integrated, Sustainable and Equitable Delivery of Support Services in the ARCs (Agrarian Reform Communities).”
DAR Undersecretary for Support Services Emily Padilla admitted that the road to sustaining the gains made by the DAR through the years remain long and arduous. But she expressed confidence that the new standard set for program beneficiaries’ development is attainable.
“The DAR is currently pursuing an aggressive development intervention program. It is spelled out in our new battle-cry: ‘We Farm, We Grow and We Build,’ a holistic approach that seeks to help farmer-beneficiaries attain a level of sustainability according to their stages of development: ‘From their humble beginning up to the time when they can stand on their own and direct their own course,’” Padilla said.
“The We Farm refers to the provision of support to individual ARBs to increase farm productivity, the We Grow to enhance the business acumen of ARBs and the We Build to transform agrarian reform communities (ARCs) into resilient and economically sustainable, being the foundation of our rural development program,” she explained.
The strategy will be put to a test this year, during which the DAR is set to provide farm inputs to 328 agrarian reform beneficiaries’ organizations, involving 21,240 beneficiaries, develop the business acumen of 3,324 organizations and their 83,440 member and make 3,410 organizations, covering 273,731 farmers economically sustainable.
As of end of 2021, Padilla said, of the 2.5 million agrarian reform beneficiaries, who have been awarded with a piece of farm lot, more than half or 1.3 million of them are already enjoying various forms of support services, such as, basic rural infrastructures – farm-to-market roads and bridges, irrigation and postharvest facilities and solar power – and livelihoods – animal husbandry and handicraft making, among others.
The DAR is currently pushing for the second phase of agrarian reform, which would pave the way for its transition to the Department of Rural Development.
“This is in support to the administration’s vision of a “matatag, maginhawa at panatag na buhay sa kanayunan (firm, prosperous, and comfortable living condition in the countryside),” she added.-30-(Richard Gallardo, Support Services, Department of Agrarian Reform)
