BUTUAN CITY — A farmer beneficiary group assisted through the Department of Trade and Industry’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (DTI-CARP) has received a total of P960,650 worth of livelihood assistance from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)-Agusan del Norte, the regional office of the DTI reported Thursday.
With the joint effort of the DTI, DAR, and DOLE, De Oro Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperative (DARBECO) finally received the grant from DOLE’s Integrated Livelihood Program (DILP) or Kabuhayan Program which is intended to purchase the needed equipment and initial materials for the group’s water refilling station.
“We join DARBECO in celebrating its recent milestone. We are happy that through our CARP Unit, we were able to help craft this business proposal for actual implementation with the DOLE funding,” said DTI Agusan del Norte Provincial Director Brenda Corvera.
“We believe that as with the other income-generating projects which we engaged them with – the most recent of which is the personal protective equipment, their going into e-commerce, and participation in our online and virtual trade fairs – this newest project will also be successful,” DTI-Agusan del Norte official added.
DOLE-ADN Provincial Office Head Keith Duran encouraged every member of the cooperative to continue their unity.
“I am confident that the grant will be successful with the help of the Barangay Local Government Unit of De Oro,” he added.
Furthermore, he gladly announced that if DOLE sees that the project is successful, the cooperative can request for an enhancement or expansion of the enterprise or for another project grant after two years.
Meanwhile, a series of seminars preparing micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) transition to digital media have been conducted by the DTI to its assisted Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organizations (ARBOs) under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Nine ARBOs from the municipalities of Buenavista, Nasipit, Jabonga, Santiago and Las Nieves, including four ARBOs in Butuan City already participated in the said seminar, recently.
The recipients were the Manapa ARB and Community Coop of Manapa, Buenavista, De Oro ARP Coop of Butuan City, Culit MPC of Nasipit, Palmavera Small Coconut Farmers Beneficiaries Coop of Las Nieves and Libas MPC of Jabonga.
Officials of the DTI-CARP encouraged their ARBOpreneurs to cope with the current changes in doing business forced by COVID-19 through e-commerce to advertise one’s product and generate sales without doing it physically.
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