Coop farmer-leaders attend DAR Summit to upgrade their products and services
In recognition to the men and women leaders of agrarian reform beneficiaries organizations (ARBOs) in agrarian reform communities (ARCs), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on June 23, 2022, conducted an ARBO leaders’ summit with the theme: “Magsasakang Pilipino: Kaabikat sa Pagpapaunlad ng mga Kanayunan.”
DAR Undersecretary for Support Services Atty. Emily O. Padilla said the summit aims to update and capacitate the men and women leaders of ARBOs in ARCs, specifically on the development trends affecting their communities and generate support for the project RAISE the ARCs.
“The ARBO Summit will serve as a venue for knowledge harvesting and knowledge sharing on their success stories through the different products and services,” she said.
Padilla disclosed that the Summit is an opportunity to discuss common issues and seek resolutions to problems shared by the farmer-leaders, to introduce strategies and promote collaboration across ARBOs and ARCs.
“In this gathering, we come together to share the good experiences and successes you have achieved. These eventually will be a collection of good lessons and answers that can be developed into steps or policies to address the problems that may be encountered by the DAR, agrarian reform beneficiary (ARB), ARBO and ARC in the future,” she said.
Padilla expressed her hope that this DAR farmer-leaders summit will serve as a powerful catalyst to align the ARB leaders, the 500,000 ARBs of 9,000 ARBOs, 2,247 ARCs, and 178 ARC Clusters nationwide.
Among the topics discussed during the Summit were transforming the rural communities into viable ARCs through the DAR-SSO Roadmap: Raise the ARCs, gender and development (GAD) mainstreaming in ARBOs and entrepreneurial leadership and livelihood opportunities for ARBOs.
ARBO leader from Tarlac Edgar H. Sumat expressed his gratitude to the DAR for offering its tireless support services to the ARBs.
"We are hoping that the DAR will become even more stable in promoting this kind of leadership training for the sake of the future generation of farmers," Sumat said.