Land reform farmers to plant 1.5 million trees
MANILA, Philippines—An army of farmers covered by the agrarian reform program has been deployed to a massive tree planting campaign spanning 900 hectares of public land, the Department of Agrarian Reform said on Wednesday.
The DAR said it mobilized agrarian reform beneficiaries for the greening program for public lands within their communities “in a bid to lick rural poverty and mitigate global warming.”
Undersecretary Rosalina Bistoyong of the DAR’s Special Programs and Agrarian Reform Stakeholders Relations Office (Sparsro) said in a statement the farmer-beneficiaries would plant at least 1.5 million seedlings they themselves produced through their organizations.
She said the tree planting project was pursuant to Executive Order 26, which created the National Greening Program (NGP).
Bistoyong said the P8.5-million project was targeting 18 agrarian reform communities, with the operations focusing on at least 50 hectares of public lands within each community.
A total of 83,350 seedlings will be planted at each community, at a ratio of 1,667 seedlings per hectare, the official said.
The project is estimated to cost about P470,000 for each community, with P300,000 of the amount going directly to the agrarian reform beneficiaries’ organization (ARBO), representing payment for the seedlings that the NGP had contracted the farmers to tend.
The seedlings, each costing P3.60, will be planted within the agrarian reform communities to which the seedling-producing ARBO belongs, she said.
“This is our way of returning the favor to our partner ARBOs by providing them sources of income through seedling production and planting of fruit and other tree species primarily for fuel wood purposes and other high value crops,” Bistoyong said.
Besides alleviating rural poverty, Bistoyong said, the project seeks to attain climate change resiliency by encouraging farmer-beneficiaries to actively participate in the National Greening Program.
She said the program has four phases: organizational and technical training of ARBOs on the business and technical aspect of the NGP, mapping and survey of proposed sites, the establishment of nursery and plantation, and inspection and evaluation to ensure the efficient production of seedlings.
