They are so poor: DAR exec says Pinoy farmers need urgent help
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Usec. Emily Padilla said there is real urgency to provide the farming sector with much-needed assistance as it is the most vulnerable among all the sectors in the country.
"They were already poor, if not the poorest among the poor, even before the pandemic had afflicted the country,” Padilla said during the distribution of Certificates of Land Ownership Award and the awarding of the P9.3-million package of support services at Hotel Consuelo, Santa Rosa, Nueva Ecija.
The package included P1.81-million in financial assistance to two farmers’ organizations, two light tractors worth P1.99 million, and 75 hauling motorbikes worth P5.51 million.
“Before the pandemic, poverty incidence in the farming sector was pegged at 34.4 percent, the highest in our society,” Padilla said.
“After the pandemic or because of the pandemic, I wonder how much the poverty incidence in the farming sector will be?” she asked. She noted that the 13 million farmers around the country could comprise 70 percent of the "poorest of the poor" in the rural areas.
The undersecretary stressed that “it is high time farmers get all the help they need since they are the ones taking the cudgel for the nation’s requirements at this time of the pandemic: providing food on our table.”
Padilla cited four types of support services that the DAR is extending to all farmers regardless of whether they are identified agrarian reform beneficiaries or not.
These are the social infrastructure building, the livelihood enterprise development, the financial/credit assistance, and the climate resilient farm productivity support projects.
Social infrastructure building urges all farmers to form or join various organizations for them to quickly avail of the three other types of services the government is coursing through these groups.
Padilla said livelihood enterprise development involves off-farm livelihood assistance to augment household income, while financial/credit assistance is about providing farmers financial capital for farm input. Lastly, the climate resilient farm productivity support project refers to the delivery of farm machineries to farmers.