LinksFarmM Agreement sealed in Island Garden City of Samal

     A Memorandum of Agreement to seal the implementation of the LinksFarm Project with San Remegio Agrarian REform Beneficiaries Multi-Purpose Cooperative (SARBEMCO) as recipient, was recently signed by Davao del Norte Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer Jocelyn Seno, Island Garden City of Samal Mayor Al David and SARBEMCO BOD Chairperson Federico Tautu-an.            

     “LinksFarm” or Linking Smallholder Farmers, is an innovative program of the DAR for the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organizations (ARBOs) in partnership with the Local Government Unit and Private Entities which aims to engage farmers in agricultural productions and marketing and to make smallholder farmers increase their agricultural productivity and effectively manage their agricultural production by applying value chain process.

     In May 2019, DAR launched an expanded version of its project that links agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB) and smallholder farmers to the supply chain of products. LinkSFarM was rebranded with an additional “M” at the end which stands for Microfinance and aims to enlist various stakeholders of agro-enterprise development to help uplift the lives of agrarian reform beneficiaries, smallholder farmers, and farmer organizations.

     The beneficiary of this year’s project for DAR Davao del Norte is the San Remegio Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Multi-Purpose Cooperative (SARBEMCO) whose awarded land is located at Brgy. San Remegio,Kaputian District of the Island Garden City of Samal, Province of Davao del Norte.

     Under the MOA, the project will involve an Agro-Enterprise (AE) Course composed of five (5) batches of training to be attended by the facilitators from the DAR and LGU.  The project will likewise be implemented for two (2) years in Barangay San Remegio and other neighboring barangays with a target of 600 smallholder farmers as direct beneficiaries of the project and at least 300 farming households are expected to be benefitted.

     The DARPO will provide funds to be utilized for various project implementations and coordinate with DAR Central Office through Bureau of Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Development (BARBD) while the LGU will ensure the timely release or delivery of the LGU’s project counterpart and provide technical guidance, technology and livelihood support and other relevant enterprise development inputs to the ARBs. 

- Dindo C. Tabudlong/DARPO Davao del Norte IO