ARBOs spur rural development

The promise of the land reform program is slowly but steadily coming to fruition as participating agrarian reform beneficiaries’ organizations (ARBOs) have sold more than P3 billion worth of agricultural produce to various government agencies and private institutions under the Department of Agrarian Reforms (DAR) Enhanced Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty (EPAHP) in six years.

“The collaboration between our ARBOs on the one hand and the government agencies and private institutions on the other is vital in spurring rural development,” DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III said.

“Little by little, we are seeing our ARBOs coming on their own. It goes to show when everybody puts their acts together, we can make things happen,” he added.

The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) has become the ARBOs’ biggest customer.

The BJMP has completed 929 transactions in six years, resulting in the procurement of over P102 million worth of farm goods delivered to it by the participating ARBOs for the daily subsistence of persons deprived of liberty under its custody. The amount is 20 times the nearly P6 million it transacted with the ARBOs in its first year of engagement in 2020 under the EPAHP.

The Medical Mission Group (MMG), an organization of private hospitals, was the first to take the project when they dealt with two ARBOs for farm goods worth more than P3 million in 2019. The amount of transactions has risen to over P25 million in six years.

Besides the MMG, several private institutions have stepped forward and dealt with the ARBOs 1,555 times in six years, resulting to P1.17 billion in gross sales of farm goods.

The DAR chief called on other government agencies and private institutions to buy their daily subsistence from different farmers’ organizations and be a part of this effort to uplift the standards of living in the countryside.