DAR, TESDA to enhance farmers’ entrepreneurial skills

Agrarian Reform Secretary John R. Castriciones has struck a deal with Secretary Isidro Lapeña of the Technical Educational Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to provide farmer-beneficiaries and dependents off-farm business skills to augment their family income.

The two recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) at the TESDA Complex in Taguig City. The MOA seeks to provide farmer-beneficiaries and their dependents trainings on entrepreneurial courses under the scholarship program of the TESDA, such as baking, dress-making, coffee-making (barista) and automotive mechanic, among various available technical and vocational courses.

Castriciones said the DAR and the TESDA have agreed to offer scholarship grants to 3,150 farmer-beneficiaries and dependents. So far, 1,600 scholars have been endorsed to regional offices of TESDA for enrollment.

The DAR chief said the partnership “is very significant in uplifting the standards of living of the farmer-beneficiaries, who are close to the heart of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte.”

Earlier, President Duterte directed Castriciones to place under the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) all idle government-owned agricultural lands and distribute them to landless farmers to make them productive.

“Providing our farmer-beneficiaries skill-enhancement trainings is a big step towards alleviating rural poverty and ensuring food security in the country,” Castriciones said shortly after the simple signing ceremonies attended by a handful of farmer-beneficiaries from the provinces of Quezon and Batangas.

Studies show that 70 percent of the poorest of the poor lives in the rural areas, most of them are farmers and fishermen.

“This is a big challenge that we need to address,” Lapeña said.

He said the skill development trainings being offered by the TESDA would help empower a farmer, which may lead to his/her emancipation from the bondage of the soil.

“Through this scholarship program, every member of the farming family can contribute in uplifting the rural economy and spurring rural development,” Lapena said.

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