Farmer organization from a remote Samar village receives farm equipment from DAR

Samar Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II (PARPO II) Alfonso Catorce turns over various farm equipment to the Panoypoy farmers Association in Calbayog City. (JESSA LABAGALA, DAR-Samar)

          CALBAYOG CITY, Samar – An agrarian reform beneficiaries organization (ARBO) from this city’s far-flung village rejoiced as they received another set of farm equipment from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).

          “We thank you DAR for listening to our concerns, for granting us what you had committed,” said Pedro Abajo, president of the Panoypoy Farmers Association (PFA), as he expressed gratitude to DAR officials for fulfilling their promise.

          On October 21 this year, DAR Samar provincial chief, Alfonso Catorce, formally turned over to PFA a hand tractor with rotavator, a water pump with suction and discharge hose, a grass cutter and several garden tools.

          Catorce disclosed that the said equipment, with a combined amount of ₱260,250.00 were funded under DAR’s Climate Resilient Farm Productivity Support (CRFPS) project.

Pedro Abajo, President of the Panoy Farmers Association. (JESSA LABAGALA)

          According to him, the distribution of common service facilities is in line with Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III’s nine primary goals which include the provision of modern farm equipment. Likewise, this also serves as DAR’s contribution to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, a whole-of-nation approach to end insurgency problem particularly in this province, Catorce stressed.

          PFA identified the above-mentioned common service facilities as what they badly need in their daily farm activities, which DAR provided under CRFPS’ Sustainable Livelihood Support to Disaster Affected Areas.

          Abajo Shared that the newly acquired equipment “will surely benefit our members.”

          Thelma Alfaro, chief of the Program Beneficiaries Development Division (PBDD) reminded the recipient ARBO of their responsibility to maintain the equipment in good condition and provide a secured storage facility.

          Meanwhile City Councilor Minda Pasacas, who is a resident of Barangay Panoypoy, and village chairperson Maria Princess Montaner, both expressed their gratitude to DAR for the never-ending support to the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) here. “From providing them lands to till, to livelihood assistance, to linking them to institutional buyers, and now PFA receives another set of farm equipment from DAR,” said Montaner.

          Municipal Agrarian Reform Program Officer (MARPO) Jose Arropo further shared that PFA is composed of 113 members, where 69 of them are ARBs. PFA is into hog raising and organic vegetable production, Arropo added. (JESSA LABAGALA, DAR-Samar)