Department of Agriculture Secretary William Dar urged farmers to cluster their farms to easily avail government assistance since they are providing farm machineries to clustered farms.
In an interview with DZBB on Saturday afternoon, Secretary Dar informed farmers that they will provide tractors and other machineries for a minimum of 100 hectares clustered farm.
“For every 100 hectares na riceland at halos meron ding 100 rice farmers yan. Mabibigyan yung grupo ng makinarya. Ganun po para may common service at tuloy-tuloy ang produksyon. Ang makinarya ay gagamitin ng grupo na yan,” Dar said.
He further said that they also encouraged partnership between farmers and big business to facilitate marketing of agricultural products.
“The higher (number of hectares) the better. We also encourage partnership between big businesses with farmer”s cooperative,” Dar said.
Aside from rice and corn, they have also encouraged farm clustering with other banner program and commodities like vegetable.
In a previous interview with DA MIMAROPA Regional Executive Director (RED) Antonio Gerundio in Puerto Princesa City, he urged farmers to organized themselves into cooperative or association to facilitate assistance to them coming from the government. He explained that most of the farm areas in Palawan are located in the interior villages and not easily accessible by vehicles.
Gerundio said that organized farmers group can avail farm machineries such as tractors, harvesters, which their agency will help process their availment of the assistance.
Agricultural Production Coordinating Office (APCO) of Palawan North, Vicente “Toto” Binasahan Jr. of DA Palawan Agricultural Experimentation Station (PAES) said that their office is facilitating the application of farmers cooperative, farmers association who wanted to avail farm machineries such as tractor, harverter etc.