President Duterte has appointed Bernie Cruz as the new head of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
Cruz, DAR's undersecretary for Foreign Assisted and Special Projects Office, replaced John Castrictiones, who resigned from his post for his aspiration to become a senator under the ruling PDP-Laban Party.
The new DAR secretary vowed to lead the agency in bringing progress in the countryside.
"I believe that one of our projects that will boost agricultural productivity in the country is the department’s Mega Farm. We will continue to seek the Congress’ approval to allocate funds for this project," Cruz said in a statement.
He said that Mega Farm is a cluster of contiguous farms that are consolidated to form a sizable plantation capable of producing large volumes of farm products to meet the demands of institutional and commercial buyers. It is also open to different high-value cash crops.
According to Cruz, Mega Farm will be beneficial for individual farmers who now own land to enter into commercial and agri-venture arrangements so that they can enter into supply contracts.
"We hope to shift them away from subsistence farming–or merely planting and harvesting so they have something to eat–towards trade and product exports,” he said.
Cruz also said that under his leadership, the agency would double its effort to distribute all the remaining undistributed lands to the landless farmers, provide support services to agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and bring social justice in agrarian communities.
Currently, the government still has more than 700,000 hectares of agricultural lands, including private lands that are mostly problematic landholdings and idle public lands suitable for agriculture.
Once awarded to qualified ARBs, these lands would allow the country to have a "sustainable agricultural sector that would contribute in ensuring food security," Cruz said.
"I am committed to bring industrialization in the agricultural sector and through provisions of support services such as various livelihood opportunities, infrastructure projects, farm machineries and equipment, capability-buildings training, loan facilities, among other support, we can achieve a stable rural economy," he added.