LIPA CITY, Batangas – The Department of Agriculture (DA) is extending livelihood opportunities to the residents of 5th- and 6th-class municipalities engage in the agriculture and fishery sectors, especially to individuals below the poverty level, in the Calabarzon region.
In an interview on Wednesday, Wilmer Faylon, the DA’s regional alternate assistant focal person for the Special Area for Agricultural Development (SAAD) program, said his office has registered more than 700 farmers and is currently assisting 12 farmers' and fishers’ cooperatives and associations (FCAs) in a span of about three or four months.
DA’s SAAD Program is “essentially anchored in poverty incidence reduction and local food production activation, through livelihood assistance for marginalized Filipino farmers and fishers,” Faylon added.
The SAAD started in Calabarzon in January this year but began eight years ago in other regions with relatively low performance.
Calabarzon region has high performance in terms of economy, Faylon said.
“In this 2nd phase, we are included because there are municipalities that are 5th class. One of the criteria is the 5th and 6th class municipalities that really need help from our government, especially in the field of farming,” he added.
Faylon, also the OIC-Chief of the Quezon Agricultural Research and Experiment Station, said they first conducted social preparation where participatory rural appraisal (PRA) is done to study the area first before they give help.
“At PRA, they will identify what product or input they can provide. They will also identify the problem and solution, so chances are that the success rate of our project will be high. That is what they know, that is existing and that is what they adopted there,” he said.
Faylon shared that other DA programs and government agencies may also use the data gathered in the PRA since it has already been well-documented by SAAD.
According to him, the 5th class municipalities in the region include eight in the province of Quezon, four in Batangas, four in Laguna, and one in Cavite.
This year, SAAD targets the municipality of Tingloy in Batangas and the towns of Alabat, Perez, and Quezon in Quezon province.
“Right now, the number of people who have been helped by our SAAD is already exceeding the target even though we are only in the 2nd quarter,” Faylon noted.
Meanwhile, he expressed the challenges in reaching the remote municipalities “because of the situation like the road is difficult or there is no road at all, no water, no electricity, and it is difficult to carry your input.”
“SAAD is what we can call an eye-opener for me that there are still many out there in what we call geographically disadvantaged,” Faylon said. (PNA)
