TARLAC CITY – More than 5,000 farm workers of the Cojuangco family-owned sugarcane plantation Hacienda Luisita are being urged to cultivate more lands to plant rice in addition to cash crops.

Lito Bais, presiding officer of the United Luisita Workers Union (Ulwu), said since 2005 when farm workers started tilling Luisita lands after they went on strike in 2004, more than 2,000 hectares had been planted with cash crops like corn and vegetables.

There are 4,915 hectares of land covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) inside Hacienda Luisita.

Bais said tilling the hacienda lands while awaiting the Supreme Court decision on their ownership has helped the workers a lot.

Because of this and the rice crisis, the Ulwu is encouraging its members to cultivate more lands and devote these to planting rice, he said.

He said while Luisita farm workers who are CARP beneficiaries cultivate less than a hectare each, their harvests go a long way for their families to survive.

Bais said that while farm workers of the vast sugarcane plantation were not used to planting rice, “they would learn it easily if they would continue doing it.”

In June 2005, striking Luisita farm workers harrowed a portion of idle sugar lands in Barangay Balete, using plows driven by carabaos to signal the cultivation of Luisita lands.

Before this, a short program was held in one of the picketlines.

Chanting “Lupa ng Hacienda Luisita, bungkalin, pagyamanin,” hundreds of workers marched toward Barangay Balete, site of the “symbolic cultivation of idle Luisita lands,” where hundreds more workers were waiting.