SAN FRANCISCO, Agusan del Sur— Soon, agrarian reform farmers in the four towns of this province will no longer sell their palay to middlemen and traders.
This will be realized in April this year when a large scale dryer and multi-pass rice milling plant in Trento town is expected to be opened where the farmers themselves will already become rice suppliers initially to government institutions with huge demand of their produce.
The P26.9 million plant, fully equipped with facilities including multi pass rice mill, recirculating mechanical batch dryer, five solar dryers, a 10-wheeler winged van hauler truck, a six-wheeler truck and a warehouse, is a project of the Department of Agrarian Reform under the Convergence of Value Chain Enhancement for Rural Growth and
Empowerment (Project ConVERGE).
The large-scale dryer and rice milling plant are jointly funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Philippine government as part of Project ConVERGE’s P110 million allocation for the agrarian reform farmers in Veruela, Trento, Bunawan and Sta. Josefa or what they called VETREBUNS cluster of rice production processing and marketing.
Local government units in the VETREBUNS cluster allotted 20 percent of the projects costs as their counterparts.
The plant will be operated by Southern Agusan Seed Producers Cooperative (SASEPCO) which will served as consolidator of the rice produce from three other agrarian reform beneficiaries organizations– Kahugpungan sa Malahutayong Mag-uuma Para sa Ekonomikanhong Kalambuan (KAMMPE), La Fortuna Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LAMUPCO) and Baug CARP Beneficiaries Multi Purpose Cooperative (BARBMPC).
Already, the organized agrarian reform farmer cooperatives have cornered a P16 million supply of rice with the Department of Social Welfare and Development after winning the competitive government bidding.
They were able to secure a certification from Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PHILGEPS) with the technical assistance and capability building training from Department of Agrarian Reform Provincial Office in Agusan del Sur.
The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the D.O. Plaza Memorial Hospital will follow suit in ordering thousands of bags of rice from them.
Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II Jamil P. Amatonding Jr. said the farmers under Project ConVERGE will be liberated from the cudgels of middlemen and unscrupulous traders since they will no longer sell their palay at the lowest farm gate prices and instead become productive rice entrepreneurs.
Amatonding said the project when realized in April will in a way address the problems of farmers from the negative effects of Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) which also affected farmers in VETREBUNs cluster.
Maximo Gegato, SASEPCO manager, said some 20 of their 200 members stopped tending their rice fields and converted their produce into bananas because of heavy losses in their harvest last year as a result of declining prices of palay.
He said traders pegged the palay prices at P700 to 800 per 50-kilo bag from what used to be P1,000 to P1,400 before the implementation of RTL.
But Amatonding assured the sad plight of the farmers on the bad effects of RTL will be a thing of the past as the VETREBUNS farmers is expected to increase their yield by 30 percent when they will fully benefit the cost effective mechanized farming system.
Apart from the large-scale dryer and rice milling plant, agrarian reform organizations not only from ConVERGE cluster received a total of P17 million modern farm machineries and equipment during the turn over ceremonies here on February 13.
Project ConVERGE allotted P13.7 million while the Climate Resilient Farm Productivity Support Project (CRFPSP) earmarked P3.3 million for the distribution of mechanized farm inputs.
The machineries and equipment include farm and hand tractors, collapsible portable dryers, rice combine harvesters, water pumps, mud boats, shredder and a substrate mixer distributed to 10 agrarian reform beneficiaries organizations.
Amatonding said the modern farm inputs would boost the production of the rice farms while significantly reducing the expenses incurred especially during planting season.
Based on the results of their strategic plan with the farmers, Amatonding said expenses will be reduced to a minimum of P7,000 from what used to be P37,000 per hectare which drove the farmers further into the quagmire of indebtedness from the traders.
He explained that if a farmer yields P74,000 per hectare, with the mechanized inputs that lessen their expenses , a net income will go as high as P45,000 to P50,000 per hectare.
Bernie Cruz, DAR Undersecretary of Foreign Assisted and Special Project Office (FASPO), told the farmers in jest in his speech that he hoped that they would become rice cartels in the province when he will return in April.
‘“We always consider the welfare of our farmer-beneficiaries in consonance with President Duterte’s mandate to pursue a more aggressive and genuine agrarian reform program and ensure that they are provided with the needed support services to increase their household income,” Usec. Cruz said.
