PAGADIAN CITY, Zamboanga del Sur—The Department of Agrarian Reform Region IX Director Felix Aguhob said the department is providing the necessary assistance including provision of farm equipment and livelihood and the construction of farm-to-market roads to discourage farmer-awardees from selling their lands.
Some farmer-beneficiaries in several rural communities of the Zamboanga Peninsula have been found selling the lands awarded to them, a top DAR official here said.
Aguhob said agrarian field personnel disclosed that more than 1,000 farmer-beneficiaries had sold their lands from May 2015 to April 2016, based on the number of transfer orders he had signed during the 11-month period.
He disclosed that some farmer-awardees sell their lands due to poverty or to purchase medicines for sick members of their families.
“Farmer-beneficiaries who had sold their lands “have been disqualified from the government’s agrarian reform program,” Aguhob said, adding that the agency have also screened the purchasers to determine if they were qualified to avail of the program and are willing to continue the unsettled amortization of the previous farmer-beneficiaries.
According to him, “each farmer-beneficiary of the agrarian reform program is awarded an average of 1.6 to two hectares of land to be amortized in 30 years.”
The DAR director stressed that the agency “is reaching out to our agrarian reform awardees to discourage them from selling their lands which they should make more productive and profitable for their families.