Legazpi City hosts national farmer’s congress

• Source: http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/2571499931713/legazpi-city-hosts-national-farmer-s-congress
• Saturday, July 22, 2017

MAL/SAA/EAS-PIA5/Albay)

LEGAZPI CITY (PIA) – Some 1,200 farmers across the country are convening today in this city for the National 8th Kilusang Mambubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) Congress.

Legazpi City Mayor Noel Rosal said most of the participants are leaders of the KMP from the 15 regional chapters and 67 provincial chapters from the entire country.

Rosal welcomed the participants during the opening rites held at the Ibalong Centrum for Recreation (ICR), stressing on their role as producers of agricultural commodities needed by communities for their daily consumptions.

Rosal likewise urged the farmer participants to continue planting more rice, vegetable and root crops to boost agricultural production and ensure that the country’s local food and commodities are sufficient to meet the daily demands of the people in communities.

Furthermore, he encouraged the farmers to use organic fertilizers as substitute to high cost fertilizers, pesticides and other farming materials to reduce their farming expenses and thereby improve production as part of the solution to poverty incidence in the society.

On the farmers’ part, KMP national chairman Antonio Flores said one purpose of the agenda is to unify farmers across the country to ask the congress for the enactment of the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill into a national law in order to start the proper implementation of just and fair land reform.

“If this bill becomes a law, all the haciendas including the big plantations and mining areas in the country will be distributed equally and freely to the farmers who doesn’t have their own land,” Flores said.

The KMP conducts the national congress every four years to discuss the different programs and projects of the organization including the election of national committees.

The theme for this year’s gathering is “Magtagumpay Palawakin at Patatagin ang Kilusang Mambubukid ng Pilipinas.”

The KMP is a democratic and militant movement of landless peasant, small farmers, farm workers, rural youth and peasant women.