DAR launches tree-planting drive

MANILA, Philippines - In a bid to address rural poverty and global warming, the Department of Agrarian Reform has mobilized agrarian reform beneficiaries to help in the massive tree-planting campaign in nearly a thousand hectare of public lands in their communities.

Undersecretary Rosalina Bistoyong of the DAR Special Programs and Agrarian Reform Stakeholders Relations Office said the farmer-beneficiaries would be armed with at least 1.5 million seedlings they themselves produced through their organizations.

She said that 900 hectares would be covered by the program that President Benigno Aquino III launched with the signing of Executive Order No. 26  last January 24, 2011, declaring the implementation of the National Greening Program (NGP).

Bistoyong said the P8.5-million program is targeting 18 agrarian reform communities, with the operations concentrating on at least 50 hectares of public lands within each of communities.

She said that a total of 83,350 seedlings would be planted at each ARC, at a ratio of 1,667 seedlings per hectare.

She said the estimated project cost for each ARC is P470,000, about P300,000 of this would go directly to the agrarian reform beneficiaries’ organizations, representing payment for the seedlings that the NGP has contracted the farmer to tend. The seedlings, each cost P3.60, will be planted within the ARC from which the seedling producing ARBO stays.

“This is our way of returning the favor to our partner ARBOs by providing them sources of income through seedling production and planting of fruit and other tree species primarily for fuel wood purposes and other high value crops,” Bistoyong said in a statement.

Besides alleviating rural poverty, Bistoyong said, the project seeks to attain climate change resiliency by encouraging our farmer-beneficiaries to actively participate in the national greening program.

She added that the program has four phases, starting with the organizational and technical training of ARBOs on business and technical aspect of the NGP, which involves the production of seedlings and subsequent activities, such as the maintenance and protection of planted seedlings.

Mapping and survey of proposed plantation sites would follow, Bistoyong said, adding that it is important in delineating the areas to be used for seedling production.

She said the third phase is the establishment of nursery and plantation site, which shall be subjected to strict supervision, inspection and evaluation to ensure the smooth sailing production of the required number of seedlings. - Dennis Carcamo