FEATURE: Saving farms thru “SAGIP” program

• Source: http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/1431443391688/feature-saving-farms-thru-sagip-program
• Tuesday, September 29, 2015

By Franklin P. Gumapon (FPG/PIA9)

Here in Liloy, Zamboanga del Norte corn farmers don’t leave their farms; they till their lands and make them productive!

In most parts of the country the farmers, who are touted as the “backbone of the nation,” are thinning in numbers. Most of them are leaving their farms to find other means to eke out a living. They find farming to be capital-intensive but the revenue is too small. At times their produce is not enough for their own consumption.

But why are the corn farmers in this town tending their farms again? It all started with the implementation of the municipality’s “SAGIP” program by virtue of Municipal Ordinance No. 234 series of 2014 otherwise known as Sustaining Agriculture through Government Interventions and Participation (SAGIP) ordinance.

Primary purposes

In consonance with the SAGIP program, the local government unit (LGU) of Liloy aims to directly engage in farming by cultivating available farmlands and to plant them with corn and other crops, and to encourage farmers to go back to their farms and continue farming using effective farming techniques.

This program also seeks to increase the food supply in the locality and, at the same time, provide employment opportunities by hiring three farm workers for every one-hectare corn land to ensure continuing assistance to the farmers and their families.

Usufruct agreement

In an interview with Mayor Felixberto Bolando, he said private lands cultivated and planted with corn by the municipal government are sanctioned by a usufruct agreement between the municipal mayor and the landowners as authorized by the Sangguniang Bayan or municipal council.

Under this scheme, the landowner continues to enjoy all the produce of the trees and plants existing at the time of the execution of the said agreement while the municipal government shall only harvest and enjoy all the produce of the corn planted by its job order employees.

In 2014, the municipality was able to cultivate 22 hectares of private lands, employing 66 job order farm workers.

Seeing the benefits the SAGIP program brings to idle private corn lands, more landowners have volunteered their lands to be covered by the said program. This year the LGU has farmed a total of 50 hectares of corn lands under usufruct agreement from last year’s 22 hectares.

Assistance to corn farmers

Mayor Bolando also disclosed that the municipal government through its Municipal Agriculturist’s Office (MAO) had extended assistance to corn farmers by plowing their corn lands using the municipal tractors for free plus a 50-kilo bag of fertilizer for every one–hectare farm. The only obligation of the farmer-beneficiaries is to plant their lands with corn.

With this, the farmers are getting 3 to 4 tons of corn produce per hectare and most of them are now going back to their farms. “Before only 20 percent of the farmers were active with the program, but now we have 40 to 50 percent active farmers,” the mayor pointed out.

Exclusive for the locals

SAGIP program is the municipal leadership’s answer to food supply problem encountered by the farmers themselves. Before the implementation of this program, some corn farmers had abandoned their farms, selling away their carabaos to buy motorcycles to be used as “Habal-habal” - the main transportation used to ferry passengers in remote and far-flung villages with no clear roads. This resulted in the decrease in corn production in the municipality.

As majority of his constituents are corn eating, Mayor Bolando said the corn produced under the SAGIP program would be sold to the “registered and actual residents of Liloy town at a price to be fixed by the Sangguniang Bayan through an ordinance but lower than that prevailing in the market.”

“The farmers here are now encouraged to go back to their farms,” Mayor Bolando declared. He believes that the SAGIP program is now gaining a momentum toward food security in his town.