Rain, farm support lift hope of Muslim farmers

COTABATO CITY—Rain and agriculture support bring hope to Muslim rice and corn farmers aiming for increased harvests.

Farmer Pendatun Gulam, 53, said his group of tillers in Talayan, Maguindanao province, had just acquired their 5-hectare share of the titles covering 20,055 ha being distributed by the Department of Agrarian Reform in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DAF-ARMM).

In time for the planting season, the department also provided 18 farmer-cooperatives in Maguindanao with large tractors, plow-disc trailers and other equipment, according to its secretary, Amihilda Sangcopan.

Gulam said the frequent downpour was perfect timing for soil moisture and could bring more water to irrigation dams for the new cropping.

The region’s Department of Agriculture and Food was being aided by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO) in supplying seedlings to farmers previously displaced by armed conflict, its secretary, Makmod Mending Jr., said.

5,000 beneficiaries

Mending said at least 5,000 rice and corn farmers had been identified as beneficiaries of the UN-FAO’s P20-million seeds support program.

Kadiguia Abdullah, information office head at DAF-ARMM, said rice production from a total irrigated land area of 21,031 ha dropped in 2012 but rose in 2013, from 71,084 metric tons to 73,398 MT. A 20-30 percent increase in rice production was likely in 2015, Mending said.

Early this year, the Maguindanao-based Lam San Trading, Mindanao’s largest producer of flour, declared its importation of 30,000 MT of corn from Indonesia due to shortfall in raw materials for flour milling. Nash B. Maulana, Inquirer Mindanao