THE Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has partnered with a foreign donor to empower 175,000 women as female farmers to take center stage in a P6.2-billion poverty alleviation and food security project in January 2025.
DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III said the project dubbed the Value-Chain Innovation for Sustainable Transformation in Agrarian Reform Communities (VISTA) seeks to address the main causes of rural poverty and create economic opportunities for its target beneficiaries of 70,000 smallholder households, about 350,000 individuals, half of them are women.
“This is what we wanted to address through the VISTA, a six-year project spearheaded by DAR in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development. It has a total funding of $112.82 million, roughly estimated at P6.2 billion,” he said.
Rural poverty exists because of poor agricultural practices, weak producer organizations, lack of infrastructure, and poor access to markets and finance, he lamented.
VISTA will be implemented starting in January 2025 in 112 agrarian reform communities spread over the six provinces of Cordillera Administrative Region — Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Mountain Province — and four provinces of Soccskargen — North Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sarangani and Sultan Kudarat.
