DAR to initially award 30-ha. land located in Lal-lo town to agri grads
TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan, Jan. 23 (PIA) - - The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) - Cagayan provincial office is set to award arable lands to some agriculture graduates in Lal-lo town this first quarter.
DAR Cagayan Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer I Nida Agustin said they have identified about 549 hectares of land at the Cagayan State University (CSU) Lal-lo campus that are suitable for agriculture to be distributed to qualified beneficiaries as mandated under Executive Order 75.
"These were the land areas within the university campus that have not utilized exclusively for the purpose in favor of CSU," Agustin said.
However, she clarified that there are already occupants in some of the areas of the identified 549 hectares which she said they will look into if the occupants have legal documents to prove that they own the land.
As of writing, Agustin said there were already 45 individuals who have applied to get a share from the said farmlands, however, they still need to screen who among the applicants are qualified as the office needs to consider that beneficiaries should also be natives and residents of the area.
"Initially, each beneficiary can get up to three hectares but because the available lands as of this time are limited, we will give each beneficiary one hectare," she added.
"Since these are agricultural lands, we do expect that they [beneficiaries] will grow agriculture-based products such as corn, palay, vegetables, root crops, sugarcane and the like," Agustin said adding that they will still conduct soil analysis to determine the types of crops that are best suitable to the lands.
Aside from the identified areas in Lal-lo town, Agustin said there are also 73 hectares of tillable lands inside the CSU Piat campus that will also be distributed to agriculture graduates in the area.
Earlier, DAR Secretary John Castriciones in his visit in Nueva Vizcaya recently said their agency is expected to distribute the at least 30 hectares of agricultural lands in Lal-lo, Cagayan to 36 agriculture graduates on February 5. (MDCT/OTB/PIA 2-Cagayan)
