ZAMBOANGA CITY, 21 June 2006 — More than 214,000 hectares of agricultural lands have been distributed to small farmers in the Zamboanga Peninsula and Basilan island in the southern Philippines under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), officials have said.
Julita Ragandang, regional director of the Department of Agrarian Reform, said over 60,000 farmers benefited from the program in the provinces of Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga del Sur and in the cities of Zamboanga, Lamitan and Isabela in Basilan island.
“We are happy to note that the CARP is successful in Western Mindanao and we are now working on sustaining the momentum of the program to support the increase in demand for other services in dozens of agrarian reform communities in the region,” Ragandang said at a news conference in Zamboanga City on Monday.
She said the CARP has transformed farmers into small entrepreneurs, but she admitted the lack of government funding is making it difficult for them to carry out an extensive inventory of agricultural lands in the region which have not been accounted for.
“We have already distributed more than 98 percent of agricultural lands, but there are still vast tracks of lands that need to be placed under the CARP and the lack of funding to survey these areas are making it difficult for us to carry out important inventories,” she said.
Ragandang said despite the lack of funding, the department in Western Mindanao ranked number 1 in land acquisition and distribution from all over the country.
“Landowners are very cooperative and that’s why we managed to distribute more than 214,000 hectares of agricultural lands to our farmers,” she said.
